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  of some of its worries, divining that I was older and graver and perhaps would find her lost ball and give it to her to play with again.

“There’s no telling when Laura will be here!” she exclaimed despairingly. “When there is any duty within a thousand miles she stays to perform it. Mrs. Beckett has poisoned herself with mercury and Laura thinks she ought to go and nurse her for a day or two—as if Mrs. Beckett had n’t six maids and twenty thousand a year to spend in nurses! Laura can’t bear Tom, his incurable levity gets on her nerves, and why she wants to martyr herself by staying in the house with him when I’d be only too glad to go, passes my comprehension!”

(I can’t explain it, but at this juncture I seemed to have visions of Laura flirting with the Beckett during the Kitten’s absence.)

“Sometimes,” she continued, rippling along as if natural speech had been denied her for hours, “sometimes I wish I had n’t selected such a superior being for a bosom