Elfrida made one as well as she could.
“To teach you respect for your elders,” said the old gentleman, “you had best get by heart one of Dr. Watts’s Divine and Moral Songs. I leave you to see to it, my lady.”
“‘HOITY-TOITY,’ SAID THE OLD LADY VERY SEVERELY; ‘WE FORGET OUR MANNERS, I THINK.’”
He laid down the sheet and went out, very straight and dignified, and without quite knowing how it happened the children found themselves sitting on two little stools in a room that was, and was not, the parlour in which they had had that hopeful eggy breakfast, each holding a marbled side of Dr. Watts’s Hymns.
“You will commit to memory the whole of the one commencing—
“‘Happy the child whose youngest years
Receive instruction well,’
And you will be deprived of pudding with your dinners,” remarked the old lady.
“I say!” murmured Edred.