"Indeed I cried."
"Why, you great, big, grown-up woman! Oh, but you weren't our mother then, were you? and you couldn't have been if you'd tried, for we weren't born!"
Having settled this in his mind, Phil saw less absurdity in her crying over a doll.
"Naughty Kittyleen, pick folks' eyes out," exclaimed little Ethel, returning to the subject anew. "Effel wouldn't pick eyes out! No, in-deed!"
Never before had the baby felt herself so good and high-minded, so worthy of praise.
"I think Kittyleen ought to be shut up in the closet and whipped," declared Phil; and this opinion was so gratifying to Flaxie that she kissed him, and said she should never call him a naughty brother again.
"I suppose mother wouldn't shut her up because she is a visitor, but I should think she might send her home," muttered Flaxie, angrily.
"My daughter, would you have me send little Kittyleen home in the rain?"
"Yes'm, I think she has stayed long enough," sobbed Flaxie, pressing her hands in anguish to her bosom.