Page:While Caroline Was Growing.djvu/142



Caroline stared uncomprehendingly.

"My mother doesn't think it's right for Aunt Edith to go off and leave the house all alone the way she does," she explained; "she's always telling her some one will break in if she doesn't leave Selma or a dog. And she never locks a thing, you know—she says if they intend to get in, they will, and that's all there is about it. So this time she went for three days, and Miss Honey and the General and Delia; and Selma and Anna went to a wedding and Ed went somewhere about a lawn-mower, and little Ed was going to get the pony shod. I told Aunt Edith I'd—" she coughed importantly—"keep an eye on the house."

"I see," said the man.

He poured himself two inches of the topaz liquor; it rocked in the glass.

Caroline sniffed inquiringly.

"That's the Scotch," she said; "I know by the smell, partly like cologne and partly smoky. Do you like it?"

The man raised the glass to the level of his eyes and watched the light play through it, then