pleted, she offered up her orisons in a soft, musical "Good-night, good-night," as she settled to repose. It was then that she became endeared to her exasperated family and was forgiven the day's record of miscellaneous misdeeds. Even knowledge of the slices she had taken out of the door-jamb, or chair-back, if occasion had offered, softened in retrospect; and one day when she uttered that same little sweet good-night from the folds of an apron that chanced to be hanging on the kitchen door, you forgave her a whole record of ill-doings in one magnificent lump, for the sake of the laugh it set going and the consequent clearing of an overcharged domestic atmosphere. She had stuck her inquisitive head between the folds and the tone was muffled. When she withdrew it again, you could have sworn there was conscious glee in the mischievous look she wore. Indeed, you often had an uneasy sense that she knew more than was commonly accredited to her. The remarks that came with staggering appropriateness left an irresistible impression that more than elementary intelligence lurked behind the quizzical eye.
I was an unsuspected witness at a neat little
