worth writing about, that they should make a biography about
this one? It is like a life of Napoleon with all the battles
left out. They are conceited enough to put his age in the upper
corner of each page too, as if anybody cared how old he was."

"Such pretty covers!" said Kate. "It is too bad."

"Yes," said Aunt Jane. "I mean to send them back and have new
leaves put in. These are so wretched, there is not a teakettle
in the land so insignificant that it would boil over them.
Don't let us talk any more about it. Have Philip and Hope gone
out upon the water?"

"Yes, dear," said Kate. "Did Ruth tell you?"

"When did that aimless infant ever tell anything?"

"Then how did you know it?"

"If I waited for knowledge till that sweet-tempered parrot
chose to tell me," Aunt Jane went on, "I should be even more
foolish than I am."

"Then how did you know?"

"Of course I heard the boat hauled down, and of course I knew
that none but lovers would go out just before a thunder-storm.
Then you and Harry came in, and I knew it was the others."

"Aunt Jane," said Kate, "you divine everything: what a brain