Hugh strode into the sitting-room.
“Well, you’d think he’d wash hisself afore he came calling on a lady,” said Anna to herself as she went in search of Miss Bibby, “an’ brush his dirty hat. If that’s what making books brings you to, give me bread,” and she sent a loving thought to a certain dapper baker of her acquaintance.
In the sitting-room Pauline had screwed herself round and round on the piano stool till her knees were higher than the keyboard and she was able to contemplate her Serenade from a new point of view. She looked at Hugh in some excitement but without speaking.
Lynn, Muffie and Max had evidently been at work on their letters, but had all evidently pulled up suddenly, for each displayed a blot as a full stop.
Max was the first to recover himself. He remembered he had a use for this man.
“Did you ling me a lalagmite?” he demanded.
“Oh, yes,” cried Muffie, “our stalagtites,—did you break some off? We knowed a boy that got one in a dark cave when the guard wasn’t looking and pushed it up his sleeve to carry. Did you?”
[p146]
“Not this time,” said Hugh; “but look here, young people, I didn’t come to see you to-day. Where’s Miss Bibby?”
At this question Paul began to revolve faster and faster on a downward journey simply to save herself the embarrassment of answering, and Lynn fell to writing a new sentence in her letter with great assiduity.
But Muffie had no qualms.