"Well," said Gabriel, turning round and addressing himself impatiently to the screen, "wot if it is?"
"And I've growed."
"Growed!" said Gabriel, scornfully. "And haven't I let out the tucks, and didn't I put three fingers of the best sacking around the waist? You'll just ruin me in clothes."
Olly laughed from behind the screen. Finding, however, no response from the grim worker, presently there appeared a curly head at the flap, and then a slim little girl, in the scantiest of nightgowns, ran, and began to nestle at his side, and to endeavour to enwrap herself in his waistcoat.
"Oh, go 'way!" said Gabriel, with a severe voice and the most shameless signs of relenting in his face. "Go away! What do you care? Here I might slave myself to death to dress you in silks and satins, and you'd dip into the first ditch or waltz through the first underbrush that you kem across. You haven't got no sabe in dress, Olly. It ain't ten days ago as I iron-bound and copper-fastened that dress, so to speak, and look at it now! Olly, look at it now!" And he held it up indignantly before the maiden.
Olly placed the top of her head against the breast of her brother as a point d'appui, and began to revolve around him as if she wished to bore a way into his inmost feelings.
"Oh, you ain't mad, Gabe!" she said, leaping first over one knee and then over the other without lifting her head. "You ain't mad!"
Gabriel did not deign to reply, but continued mending the frayed petticoat in dignified silence.
"Who did you see down town?" said Olly, not at all rebuffed.
"No one," said Gabriel, shortly.