Dreamikins nodded approvingly. Then she promptly seated herself on her uncle's knees.
"Now," she said, with raised finger, "begin at the very first beginning, and tell me all about them."
Fibo meekly obeyed her. They were talking hard when Annette appeared to ask if Dreamikins would come in to tea.
"I'm going to have it with Fibo."
"But there's an egg for you," said Annette—"a little brown egg produced only this morning by Madame Daw from the fat white hen. She has eaten nothing—not a little morsel, Captain—since her early breakfast. Her tongue only loves to talk, never to eat."
Dreamikins knitted her brows, then she grandly waved Annette away.
"The egg can come here," she said; "I'm not going to the egg."
Fibo looked at Annette, then at Dreamikins.
"Cherubine," he said slowly, "will you take Dreamikins in to her tea? I'm not having mine till an hour later, and her body wants some food if her brain does not."
Dreamikins opened her lips, then shut them tightly. She slipped off her uncle's knee.