“So’s he can keep it for himself, that’s what it is,” continued the child, nodding her head in rebuke at him.
“I’ve no right to any money, have I?” asked the father sarcastically.
“No, you haven’t,” the child nodded her head at him dictatorially, “you haven’t, because you only put it in the fire.”
“You’ve got it wrong,” he sneered. “You mean it’s like giving a child fire to play with.”
“Um!—and it is, isn’t it Mam?”—the small woman turned to her mother for corroboration. Meg had flushed at his sneer, when he quoted for the child its mother’s dictum.
“And you’re very naughty!” preached Gertie, turning her back disdainfully on her father.
“Is that what the parson’s been telling you?” he asked, a grain of amusement still in his bitterness.
“No it isn’t!” retorted the youngster. “If you want to know you should go and listen for yourself. Everybody that goes to church looks nice——” she glanced at her mother and at herself, pruning herself proudly, “—and God loves them,” she added. She assumed a sanctified expression, and continued after a little thought: “Because they look nice and are meek.”
“What!” exclaimed Meg, laughing, glancing with secret pride at me.
“Because they’re meek!” repeated Gertie, with a superior little smile of knowledge.