"Why, what a big girl we're getting!" he observed to Barbara in his best godfatherly manner. "I suppose we shall soon be going to school?"
"Oh, no, not yet awhile," I interposed. "The fact is she's already far too forward, and we think it a good thing to keep her back a bit. You'd never believe the amazing remarks she makes. Just now, for instance, we happened to be discussing the comparative love of truth inherent in men and women, and Barbara chipped in and told me she thought women were far more careless of the truth than men."
"Good heavens!" said Tom, who is a bachelor by conviction. "She certainly hit the nail on the head there."
"Yes, and she added that she herself prized truth above chocolates."
"It sounds almost incredible," gasped Tom.
"Doesn't it? But ask Julia; she heard it all. And Julia will also tell you what Barbara remarked about my work."
But Julia, who was already gathering her furs about her, followed up an unusual silence by a sudden departure.
From what Suzanne has since refrained from saying I am confident that I've broken the back of one more legend, and saved Barbara from the fate of having to pass the rest of her childhood living up (or down) to a spurious halo of precocity.
