run the length of their tether, but sometimes I has to pull them up, and then I does it with a jerk. They don’t dast aggravate me, because I’ve got considerable hard cash, and they're afraid I won’t leave it all to them. Neither I will. I'll leave ’em some, but some I won't, just to vex ’em. I haven't made up my mind where I will leave it but I'll have to, soon, for at eighty a body is living on borrowed time. Now, you can take your time about dressing, my dear, and I'll go down and keep them mean scalawags in order. That’s a handsome child you have there. Is he your brother?”
“No, he's a little war-baby I’ve been taking care of, because his mother died and his father was overseas,” answered Rilla in a subdued tone.
“War-baby! Humph! Well, I'd better skin out before he wakes up or he'll likely start in crying. Children don’t like me—never did. I can’t recollect any youngster ever coming near me of its own accord. Never had any of my own. Amelia was my stepdaughter. Well, it’s saved me a world of bother. If kids don’t like me I don’t like them, so that’s an even score. But that certainly is a handsome child.”
Jims chose this moment for waking up. He opened his big brown eyes and looked at Mrs. Matilda Pitman unblinkingly. Then he sat up, dimpled deliciously, pointed to her and said solemnly to Rilla,
“Pwitty lady, Willa—pwitty lady.”
Mrs. Matilda Pitman smiled. Even eighty-odd is sometimes vulnerable in vanity.
“I’ve heard that children and fools tell the truth,” she said. “I was used to compliments when I was young—but they’re scarcer when you get as far along
