John is a--John is a--Underneath all that slowness, that ponderous
slowness--that--that--Underneath that--"

"That longish--reddish--grayish beard?" interpolated little Eve
Edgarton.

Glaringly for an instant the old eyes and the young eyes challenged
each other, and then the dark eyes retreated suddenly before--not the
strength but the weakness of their opponents.

"Oh, very well, Father," assented little Eve Edgarton. "Only--"
ruggedly the soft little chin thrust itself forth into stubborn
outline again. "Only, Father," she articulated with inordinate
distinctness, "you might just as well understand here and now, I
won't budge one inch toward Nunko-Nono--not one single solitary little
inch toward Nunko-Nono--unless at London, or Lisbon, or Odessa, or
somewhere, you let me fill up all the trunks I want to--with just
plain pretties--to take to Nunko-Nono! It isn't exactly, you know,
like a bride moving fifty miles out from town somewhere," she
explained painstakingly. "When a bride goes out to a place like
Nunko-Nono, it isn't enough, you understand, that she takes just the
things she needs. What she's got to take, you see, is everything under
the sun--that she ever may need!"

With a little soft sigh of finality she sank back into her pillows,
and then struggled up for one brief instant again to add a postscript,
as it were, to her ultimatum. "If my day is over--without ever having
been begun," she said, "why, it's over--without ever having been
begun! And that's all there is to it! But when it comes to Henrietta,"
she mused, "Henrietta's going to have five-inch hair-ribbons--and