He was always in hot water for mislaying these things, but if people had only known how admirably they had answered for his purpose, and how impossible it was to make anything else do, they would [198] ]hardly have grumbled so much; and they would certainly never have presented him with mere shilling tin trains, with red and green and blue cars, and a stupid little motor that could do nothing, in the hope that with a “proper toy” he would let household articles alone.
He slipped into the dining-room with a beaming face.
“Here it is, Phyl,” he said.
Phyl was stealing one more hasty page from Helen Mathers, seeing the gate had not yet banged.
“Um,” she said, her eyes tearing along.
“I soon found it for you, didn’t I?” he said.
“Good old laddie,” Phyl murmured, feeling approval was required of her.
Freddie sat down in the rocking-chair, his heart full of affection for his eldest sister.
Up the path trooped all the home-comers. Weenie was in advance—such a long-legged girl with a bright little face, burnt brown as a berry, alert brown eyes, and her brown hair drawn back anyway to be out of the road, and plaited in a short, pert little plait. Her frock was too short for her—it always was, for there was no keeping up with her growth. On the knees of her black stockings there were networks of little holes. When Phyl saw them she would be sure to sigh and say, “I can’t think how you get such holes. Those stockings were perfect this morning. You might consider me a little, Weenie.”
[199]
]And Weenie would be sure to reply, “I’m quite willing to go without stockings. I only wear them because you all seem to think it wouldn’t be respectable not to. But if they get torn when I’m wearing them for your good, I can’t help it.”