“An’ thou wilt, my little floweret.”
Mr Avery rose slowly, and taking Clare by the hand, went back to the house. He returned to his turret-study, but Clare scampered upstairs, possessed herself of her doll, and ran in and out of the inhabited rooms until she discovered Barbara in the kitchen, beating up eggs for a pudding.
“Bab, I may go with thee!”
“Go with me?” repeated Barbara, looking up with some surprise. “Marry, Mrs Clare, I hope you may.”
“To Mistress Pendexter!” shouted Clare ecstatically.
“Oh ay!” assented Barbara. “Saith the master so?”
Clare nodded. “And, Bab, shall I take Doll?”
This contraction for Dorothy must have been the favourite name with the little ladies of the time for the plaything on which it is now inalienably fixed.
“I will sew up yon hole in her gown, then, first,” said Barbara, taking the doll by its head in what Clare thought a very disrespectful manner. “Mrs Clare, this little gown is cruel ragged; if I could but see time, I had need make you another.”
“Oh, do, Bab!” cried Clare in high delight.