upward from beneath the blue jacket.

"No, you wouldn't know so much, Patsy, or at least you would get the
right end first. Never mind, dear boy, you can't understand."

"Jim says Mis' Kennett 'nd I needn't set such store by you, 'cause the
fust chance you gits you'll git married." (I always did have an elective
antipathy for Jim.) "Shall yer, Miss Kate?"

"Why, dear, I think we are very happy as we are, don't you?"

"Yes, ef I could only stay f'rever, 'nd not go ter the reel school. Jim
says I ought ter be gittin' book learnin' pretty soon."

"Did you tell him that Miss Helen was teaching you to read and write a
little while every afternoon?"

"Yes, I told him. He liked it fust rate. Mis' Kennett said she'd let her
childern stay f'rever with yer, ef they never larned a thing, 'nd so
would I, dear, dear Miss Kate! Oh, I bet God would like to see you in
that pretty blue dress!" and he hung over me with a speechless caress;
his first, and last indeed, for he was shy and reticent in emotion, and
never once showed his affection in the presence of the other children.

[Illustration: PAULINA'S "GOOD-MORNINGS TO JOHNNY CASS."]




CHAPTER VII.