"Why--why, yes--I shouldn't wonder," admitted her father.

"And reddish?" persisted little Eve Edgarton. "And longish? As long
as--?" Illustratively with her hands she stretched to her full arm's
length.

"Yes, I think perhaps it is reddish," conceded her father. "But why?"

"Oh--nothing," mused little Eve Edgarton. "Only sometimes at night I
dream about you and me landing at Nunko-Nono. And John in a great big,
long, reddish-gray beard always comes crunching down at full speed
across the hermit-crabs to meet us. And always just before he reaches
us, he--he trips on his beard--and falls headlong into the ocean--and
is--drowned."

"Why--what an awful dream!" deprecated her father.

"Awful?" queried little Eve Edgarton. "Ha! It makes me--laugh. All the
same," she affirmed definitely, "good old John Ellbertson will have to
have his beard cut." Quizzically for an instant she stared off into
space, then quite abruptly she gave a quick, funny little sniff.
"Anyway, I'll have a garden, won't I?" she said. "And always, of
course, there will be--Henrietta."

"Henrietta?" frowned her father.

"My daughter!" explained little Eve Edgarton with dignity.

"Your daughter?" snapped Edgarton.