This criticism was not intentional; it was the instinctive
judgment that children pass upon everything, object or person, likely
to affect themselves. And there is no severer bar of judgment in the
world.
'Who _is_ Cousinenry? What a name! Is he stiff, I wonder?' came from
Monkey, almost before the announcement had left her father's lips.
'What will he think of Tante Jeanne?' Her little torrent of questions
that prejudged him thus never called for accurate answers as a rule,
but this time she meant to have an answer. 'What is he exaccurately?'
she added, using her own invention made up of 'exact' and 'accurate.'
Mother looked up from the typewritten letter to reply, but before she
could say, 'He's your father's cousin, dear; they were here as boys
twenty years ago to learn French,' Jinny burst in with an explosive
interrogation. She had been reading _La Bonne Menagere_ in a corner.
Her eyes, dark with conjecture, searched the faces of both parents
alternately. 'Excuse me, Mother, but is he a clergyman?' she asked
with a touch of alarm.
'Whatever makes you think that, child?'
'Clergymen are always called the reverundhenry. He'll wear black and
have socks that want mending.'
'He shouldn't punt his letters,' declared Monkey. 'He's not an author,
is he?'
Jimbo, busy over school tasks, with a huge slate-pencil his crumpled
fingers held like a walking-stick, watched and listened in silence.
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