Gertrude, the maid, fled hysterically from the room and laughter
howled back from the kitchen.

Rosalie's father said, "You'd better go and ask your mother." Her
mother had stayed in bed that day with a chill.

Robert "undid" Rosalie--a wooden rod with a fixed knob at one
end went through the arms of her high chair and was fastened by a
removable knob at the other end--and Rosalie slid down very gravely,
and with their laughter still echoing trod upstairs to her mother's
bedside and related what she had been told to ask, and, on inquiry,
why she had asked it. "I only said 'Father, is your wife any better
now?'" and on further inquiry explained her long searching after
the undiscoverable pair.

Rosalie's mother laughed also then, but had a sudden wetness in her
eyes. She put her arms about Rosalie and pressed her to her bosom
and cried, "Oh, my poor darling!" and explained the tremendous
mystery. Wife and husband, Rosalie's mother explained, were the
names used by other people for her father and her mother. A man
and a woman loved one another very, very dearly ("as I loved your
dear father") and then they lived together in a dear house of their
own and then God gave them dear little children of their own to
live with them, said Rosalie's mother.

This thoroughly satisfied Rosalie and completely entranced her,
especially about the presentation of the dear little children. She
would have supposed that naturally it thoroughly satisfied Anna and
Harold and Flora and the others; and the point of interest rests
here, that Rosalie's mother also believed that this explanation