"Armyn is not a boy, Aunt Jane; he's a man. He is a clerk, you know,
and will get a salary in another year."

"A clerk!"

"Yes; in Mr. Brown's office, you know. Aunt Jane, did you ever go
out to tea?"

"Yes, my dear; sometimes we drank tea with our little friends in the
dolls' tea-cups."

"Oh! you can't think what fun we have when Mrs. Brown asks us to tea.
She has got the nicest garden in the world, and a greenhouse, and a
great squirt-syringe, I mean, to water it; and we always used to get
it, till once, without meaning it, I squirted right through the
drawing-room window, and made such a puddle; and Mrs. Brown thought
it was Charlie, only I ran in and told of myself, and Mrs. Brown said
it was very generous, and gave me a Venetian weight with a little
hermit in a snow-storm; only it is worn out now, and won't snow, so I
gave it to little Lily when we had the whooping-cough."

By this time Lady Jane was utterly ignorant what the gabble was
about, except that Katharine had been in very odd company, and done
very strange things with those boys, and she gave a melancholy little
sound in the pause; but Kate, taking breath, ran on again -

"It is because Mrs. Brown is not used to educating children, you
know, that she fancies one wants a reward for telling the truth; I
told her so, but Mary thought it would vex her, and stopped my mouth.