“You do, every day. The sky is beautiful, the stars, and moonlit nights, and then the birds, the flowers, the trees⁠—they’re all beautiful. Look out of the window⁠—there’s beauty for you, Jon.”

“Oh! yes, that’s the view. Is that all?”

“All? no. The sea is wonderfully beautiful, and the waves, with their foam flying back.”

“Did you rise from it every day, Mum?”

His mother smiled. “Well, we bathed.”

Little Jon suddenly reached out and caught her neck in his hands.

“ I know ,” he said mysteriously, “you’re it, really, and all the rest is make-believe.”

She sighed, laughed, said: “Oh! Jon!”

Little Jon said critically:

“Do you think Bella beautiful, for instance? I hardly do.”

“Bella is young; that’s something.”

“But you look younger, Mum. If you bump against Bella she hurts.”

“I don’t believe Da was beautiful, when I come to think of it; and Mademoiselle’s almost ugly.”

“Mademoiselle has a very nice face.”

“Oh! yes; nice. I love your little rays, Mum.”

“Rays?”

Little Jon put his finger to the outer corner of her eye.

“Oh! Those? But they’re a sign of age.”