She declined eating her orange, as she always shared it with Pepsie, but accepted the invitation to be seated. Placing Tony to forage on a basket of refuse vegetables, she climbed into the chair, placed her little heels on the topmost rung, smoothed down her short skirt, and, resting her elbows on her knees, leaned her rosy little cheeks on her palms, and set herself to studying Gex seriously and critically. At length, her curiosity overcoming her diffidence, she said in a very polite tone, but with a little hesitation: “Mr. Gex, are you a man or a woman?”
Gex, for the moment, was fairly startled out of himself, and, perhaps for the first time in years, he threw back his head and laughed heartily.
“Bon! bon! ’Tis good; ’tis vairy good. Vhy, my leetle lady, sometime I don’t know myself; ’cause, you see, I have to be both the man and the voman; but vhy in the vorld did you just ask me such a funny question?”
“Because, Mr. Gex,” replied Lady Jane, very gravely, “I’ve thought about it often. Because—men don’t sew, and wear aprons,—and—women don’t wear trousers; so, you see, I couldn’t tell which you were.”
“Oh, my foi!” and again Gex roared with laughter until a neighbor, who was passing, thought he had gone crazy, and stopped to look at him with wonder; but she only saw him leaning back, laughing with all his might, while Lady Jane sat looking at him with a frowning, flushed face, as if she was disgusted at his levity.
“I don’t know why you laugh so,” she said loftily, straightening up in her chair, and regarding Gex as if he had disappointed her. “I think it’s very bad for you to have no one to mend your clothes, and—and to have to sew like a woman, if—if you’re a man.”
“Vhy, bless your leetle heart, so it is; but you see I am just one poor, lonely creature, and it don’t make much difference vhether I’m one or t’ other; nobody cares now.”
“I do,” returned Lady Jane brightly; “and I’m glad I know, because, when Pepsie teaches me to sew, I’m going to mend your clothes, Mr. Gex.”
“Vell, you are one leetle angel,” exclaimed Gex, quite overcome. “Here, take another orange.”
“Oh, no; thank you. I’ve only bought one thing, and I can’t take two lagniappes; that would be wrong. But I must go now.”