sincerely liked him.

"You see," Hen had said, "nobody knows how hard it is to be a little
man. Nobody respects you. Your folks always apologize and try to
explain your size or tell you not to mind. And strangers and friends
poke fun at you. After a while, of course, you learn to laugh at
yourself on the outside and folks get to think that it's all a joke for
you too and that you don't mind. But you never laugh on the inside or
when you're by yourself. And you get awful tired of looking up to
other people all the time and you begin to wish somebody'd look up to
you once in a while.

"I used to think Aggie thought a heap of me even if I wasn't as tall as
other men. Grandfather and mother and Bill Simons cared a whole lot
and they didn't mind showing it often. I banked an awful lot on that
baby. And he did sure like me. He followed me all around and minded
me better than Aggie. It was me that always put him to bed and took
him up in the morning. And he'd look up at me and raise his little
hands to me and--"

Cynthia's son looked steadily at Nan.

"Do you want to hear any more?" he asked gently.

"No--no--I don't. Oh, you shouldn't have told me. I'm not good enough
to be trusted with things like that," Nanny said brokenly and winked
and winked her long lashes to shake off the tears.

"You wanted to be told. You were going away because I didn't want to
tell you," he reminded her quietly.