“My heart’s jool!”
“Oh, Mrs. Porridge, where have you been? I didn’t know where you could be, and I went to a circus and touched an ephelant on his trunk and it was all hot and I saw a little friend who the baby Jesus liked and I saw my big grannie and the wolf didn’t eat her at all and I saw two aunts and they smelt all funny like the inside of a dirty-cloves basket and we had rice-pudding for dinner and it sticked my teef togevver, and I’ve got two golden auntylopes and they eat apples made of soap.”
“My good gracious, if you haven’t been going it,” Mrs. Pottage declared, with a critical glance round the sitting-room of the lodgings. “Poky! Very poky! And not at all clean. Why, that grate don’t look as if it had been swept since the fire of London, and, oh, dear, oh, dear, just look at the dust on those pictures! If a water pipe burst in this house you’d have weeds growing on the frames. Well, I suppose I haven’t got to tell you who I’ve come to fetch?”
Nancy smiled.
“I knew you wouldn’t fail me.”
“Yes, but wait a minute. I didn’t at all like the tone of that letter you wrote me.”
Nancy looked worried.
“Not at all I didn’t like it. Yes, I see myself sending in a bill for that blessed infant’s keep. Why, you might as well ask me to charge you for the sun shining in at your windows.”
Nancy saw that she had genuinely hurt the good soul by mentioning money in connection with Letizia’s visit.
“Dear Mrs. Pottage, you could hardly expect me to plant her down on you without at least offering to pay, but I won’t offend you by arguing further. You know exactly how I feel about your kindness, my dear soul.”