observe and report the probabilities of war with China; and he was instantly glad that he had told her.
The girl's superb joy was expressed in a long, indrawn sigh, and then silence.
But something had to be said—or done.
"I—I lig as' you 'nether thing" again dissembling, as if the talk were still at the trivialities where it began.
"Certainly," said the consul, with a smile.
"But won't you have a chair?"
He had noticed that she was trembling. She sat up unsteadily on the edge of it. And then she forgot what she had meant to ask!
"Sa-ay!—"She was still at sea. But suddenly a thought flashed in her eyes.
"All bebbies at your America got those purple eye?"
"A—yes, very many of them," said the consul, with a little surprise at her direction.
"An'—an' also bald of their head?"
"All of them, I believe, at first." He smiled, and the girl smiled back at him engagingly.
"Sa-ay, augustness, he go'n' come for see those bebby? What you thing?" Her words were like caresses.
But the rapture growing surely in the girl's
