“Why don’t he be Miss Polly’s beau? They look sweet together.”
“Teeters and tongs! What’s got into you?”
“There isn’t any cocoa gingerbread inside o’ me!” resented Clementina.
“Nor there won’t be unless you stay out of here!” Benedicta’s voice was as nearly impatient as it ever came to be with the children.
“I don’t know where to wait,” complained the child.
“Go and see Grissel and Dolly and the rest.”
“I ain’t a wheel-chair one.”
“Well, I’ll make you one if you don’t go this minute!”
Which dreadful threat sent the little feet off again, not to return within Polly’s hearing.
Although there were tasks still awaiting her, she lingered by her window long after her mending was finished and the garments folded ready to be put away. The questioning that had floated up to her from the kitchen had flooded her mind with thoughts that would not be thrust out, and she brooded over them with troubled brow and restless fingers.