"Oh, dear—oh, dear—oh, dear! Have you come home?" wailed the familiar, shrill little voice.
Sheepishly the Senior Surgeon picked up his rod-case. The noises in his head were crashing like cracked bells. Desperately with a boisterous irritability he sought to cover also the lurching pound-pound-pound of his heart.
"What in Hell are you rigged out like that for?" he demanded stormily.
With equal storminess the Little Girl protested the question.
"Peach said I could!" she attested passionately. "Peach said I could! She did! She did! I tell you I didn't want her to marry us—that day! I was afraid, I was! I cried, I did! I had a convulsion! They thought it was stockings! So Peach said if it would make me feel any gooderer, I could be the cruel new step-mother. And she'd be the unloved offspring—with her hair braided all yellow fluffikins down her back!"
"Where is—Miss Malgregor?" asked the Senior Surgeon sharply.
Irrelevantly the Little Girl sank down on the gravel walk and began to gather up her scattered dishes.
"And it's fun to go to bed—now," she confided amiably. "'Cause every night I put Peach to bed at eight o'clock and she's so naughty always I have to stay with her! And then all of a sudden it's morning—like going through a black room without knowing it!"
"I said—where is Miss Malgregor?" repeated the Senior Surgeon with increasing sharpness.
Thriftily the Little Girl bent down to lap a bubble of cream from the broken pitcher.