"Good mawning!" called Lloyd, waving her towel as Phil appeared in the door. Mrs. Ware turned with such a cordial smile of welcome, that he took it as an invitation to come in, and hung his hat on the post of a chair.
"I want to have a finger in this pie," he announced. "I was told to stay at home yesterday, but I don't intend to be snubbed to-day.
"Wait, Aunt Emily, that kettle is too heavy for you!"
He had called her Aunt Emily since the first time he had heard Lloyd do it. "You don't care, do you?" he had asked. "It makes a fellow feel so forlorn and familyless when he has to mister and madam everybody." She was sewing a button on his coat for him at the time he asked her, and she gave such a pleased assent that he stooped to leave a light kiss on the smooth forehead where gray hair was beginning to mingle with the brown.
Now he took the kettle from her before she could object, and began pouring the boiling water into the pan. "Let me do this," he insisted. "I haven't had a hand in anything of the sort since I was a little shaver. It makes me think of a time when the servants were all away, and Stuart and I helped Aunt Patricia. She paid us in peppermint sticks and cinnamon drops."
"You'll get no candy here," she answered, laughing. "You might as well go on if that's what you expect." But there was no resisting the coaxing ways of this big handsome boy, who towered above her, and who took possession in such a masterful way of her apron and dish-mop. His coat and cuffs were off the next instant, and he began clattering the china and silverware vigorously through the hot soap-suds.
Mrs. Ware, taking a big yellow bowl in her lap, sat down to pick over some dried beans, and to enjoy the lively conversation which kept pace with the rattle of the dishes. It was interrupted presently by a complaint from Lloyd.
"Aunt Emily, he doesn't wash 'em clean! He's left egg all ovah this spoon. That's the second time I've had to throw it back into the watah."
"Aunt Emily, it isn't so," mocked Phil, in a high falsetto voice, imitating her accent. "It's bettah than she could do huhself. She's no great shakes of a housekeepah."
"I'll show you," retorted Lloyd, throwing the spoon back into the pan with a splash. "I'm going to make a pie foh dinnah to-day, and you won't get any."