“No, darling, not to my knowledge. I’m proud to know you are a very truthful little girl. But even such can dream queer things. Ask Dorothy to play for you and me. You know this is the last day she’ll be shut up here and I’d like to hear some music.”
Dorothy laid down her book and went to fetch her violin, but the self-willed Grace would have none of that. Stamping her foot, she imperiously cried:
“No, no, no! She shall come with me and seek that old debbil. She shall so. He had hornses and his face—”
“Grace Adelaide Tross-Kingdon! if you disobey me again by mentioning that subject, I shall send for the Bishop and brother Hugh and see what they can do with you. Do you want to be disgraced before them?”
The little girl pondered that question seriously. She could not understand why telling the truth should disgrace anybody. She loved the Bishop and fairly idolized her big brother Hugh. Her Aunt Muriel was more angry with the child than ever before in her short life and Millikins fully realized this fact.
“I’m sorry, Auntie Prin. I’m sorrier than ever was. I hate them two should think I was bad and I wish—I wish you wouldn’t not for to tell ’em. I isn’t bad, you only think so. ’Cause it’s the truthiest truth, I did see him. He had—”
Miss Tross-Kingdon held up a warning hand and her face was sterner than any pupil had ever seen it. Such would have quailed before it, but Millikins-Pillikins quailed not at all. Rising from the carpet, where she had been sitting, she planted her sturdy legs apart, folded her arms behind her and unflinchingly regarded her aunt. The midget’s defiant attitude made Dorothy turn her head to hide a smile, while the little girl reiterated:
“I did see him. I have to tell the truth all times. You said so and I have to mind. I did see that debbil. He lives in this house. When my brother Hugh comes, he shall go with me to hunt which room he lives in, and the Bishop shall preach at him the goodest and hardest he can. This isn’t no badness, dear, angry Auntie Prin; it is the truthiest truth and when you see him, too, you’ll believe it. If Hugh would come—”
Miss Tross-Kingdon leaned back in her chair and threw out her hand in a gesture of despair. What made her darling so incorrigible?