“The weather;” for with Albert this topic was always of paramount importance. “And first, I'll see what kind of a day we are going to have;” and suiting the action to the word, he stepped off a little distance to take an observation. He was always the embodiment of dainty freshness, this little four-year-old Albert, and thanks to his mother's preference, boyish percale dresses still kept the Lilliputian trousers of the period at bay. He was a cunning little object as he strode a few feet down the path, his hat on the back of his golden curls, a soft, red silk sash knotted soldier-like at his side, and his hands folded behind him, in evident and precise imitation of some older observer of the elements. His observations, however, were so exceedingly cursory and so impartially comprehensive, including the path at his feet every whit as carefully as the sky above him, that Marie-Celeste had difficulty in preserving proper decorum.