"The way you encourage that child's impertinence!"
"My dear, she does not understand. She is but a babe. I do not wish to vex you, but it is as well that you should know my means to be— not unlimited. I have had some heavy losses this year, and here is another. Unless we draw in a little now, I may by-and-by find my head under water. I think you should manage to fix upon a definite sum for your clothes and for housekeeping, and keep to it. That is what I have wanted to say for some time past."
"I'm very much obliged indeed!" said Mrs. Cragg.
Thereupon she flounced off in a huff, and once more Dot serenely observed, "Ma-ma angly."
"No, no, Dot, you mustn't say that." Cragg put the child down, kissed her, and added, "Run away to the nursery, little one."
"You'm going to see that poo-ar lickle girl, dadda?"
"Yes, yes; and when I come back, by-and-by, you shall hear how she is."
A few minutes later Cragg was wending his way to the row of red cottages, where lay Mr. Dale. On the road thither he met one of the numerous children belonging to those cottages, a small shock-haired boy, who stopped and thrust into Cragg's hand a folded slip of paper. Cragg opened and read it:
"My father is dying. He wants to see you. Pattie Dale."
"I'll be there directly," Cragg said.