'She's perfectly distracting at times, miss; that's why I forgot to serve her first.'
'Oh, you are my gweatest comfort, Bwown; have you known muvver long?'
'Can't remember the time when I didn't know her, miss.'
'Neither can I,' said the Poppet. 'I weally don't know what I should do without you, Bwown.'
'I'm sure I'm very much obliged, miss,' he said, and kissed her little hands, and then offered to make her another boat or a new doll's house if she'd rather.
How do I know that last bit? Why, a little bird told Nannie, and Nannie told me, besides I always know everything. Oh, you silly men, because you don't see the finger on the pulse you don't believe it's there. Why, I know every heartbeat in the house (including Brown's!) and so does every other woman!
CHAPTER XXVI
Ross departed to London last Monday with Sam. And I took the bit in my teeth and went up by the train after they did. I could see Ross and Sam hanging on to the red lights at the back of the last coach. They catch their trains like that (men always do). I, of course, like every other woman, invariably catch the train before.
I went to the Red Cross shop and bought a set of General Service uniform, and when I got home I found 'Uncle John' in a state of great excitement because he had found the date in the roof, as Ross had said he might! I went up the ladder to look at it. It is carved roughly on a beam. The wood is in as good a state of preservation as the day it was put in, and some initials (of the man who built the house, I suppose) are carved over it so:—
J.H.T.
1570