"Tired, dear?" asked her husband, glancing up from his paper. "I suppose you've put in a pretty hard day breaking in the foreigner. But you're doing wonders. The dinner wasn't half bad, and the mechanic didn't break a single dish in the process; at least I didn't hear the usual crash from the rear."
She smiled back at him remotely. She did not think it worth while to report the scorched potatoes, or the broken platter belonging to her best set of dishes.
"I was thinking about Doris," she said.
Her husband's eyes lighted with a reminiscent smile. "Little monkey!" he exclaimed. "She slid down the banisters like a streak of lightning and flew into my arms before I had time to take off my overcoat. She said she was sitting on the stairs, waiting for me to come. Not many children think enough about seeing their old daddy to sit on the stairs in the dark!"
"I'm really sorry to undeceive you, Sam; but I had sent that child up to her room, and told her to stay there till I called her!" Elizabeth informed him crisply.
"Wherefore the incarceration, O lady mother?"
"She was very naughty, Sam; she pinched Carroll, and when I reproved her for doing it, she said she felt like biting him. Think of that! Of course I had to do something."
"What had Carroll done to provoke the cannibalistic desire on the part of the young woman?" he wanted to know, with judicial calm.
"Nothing at all, except to remind Doris to hang up her coat and put her overshoes away, as I've told them both to do repeatedly."
His mouth twitched with an amused smile. "And Dorry punished him promptly for his display of superior virtue—eh? Well, it may be very much out of order for a mere father to say so, but I'll venture to express the opinion that it won't hurt Master Carroll to get an occasional snubbing from somebody. He's a good deal of a prig, Betty, and it's got to come out of him some way or other between now and his Sophomore year in college. Better not interfere too often, my dear. Let 'em work it out; it won't hurt either of 'em."