"I am glad she is nice," she went on. "I should like to know her.
Mothers are not _always_ nice. I knew a girl at school whose mother
wasn't nice at all."
She did not laugh after this childish speech, but let her face settle
into perfect stillness--sadness indeed, for a shadow came over the
stillness. Mr Fraser sat watching the two with his amused old face, one
side of it twitching in the effort to suppress the smile which sought
to break from the useful half of his mouth. His gout could not have
been very bad just then.
"I see, Katie, what that long chin of yours is thinking," he said.
"What is my chin thinking, uncle?" she asked.
"That uncles are not always nice either. They snub little girls,
sometimes, don't they?"
"I know one who _is_ nice, all except one naughty leg."
She rose, as she said this, and going round to the back of his chair,
leaned over it, and kissed his forehead. The old man looked up to her
gratefully.
"Ah, Katie!" he said, "you may make game of an old man like me. But
don't try your tricks on Mr Forbes there. He won't stand them."
Alec blushed. Kate went back to her seat, and took up her duster again.
Alec was a little short-sighted, though he had never discovered it till
now.
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