Carroll shook his head. "I'm not going to quarrel with you, Doris, 'cause I promised mother I wouldn't," he said with dignity; "but we are badder—'specially you; you didn't mind mother three times to-day."
"I am not badder."
"I said I wouldn't quarrel, Doris; but you are—very much badder."
"Hush, children!" exclaimed Elizabeth, hurriedly intervening between the militant pair. "Come right down stairs, and don't talk to each other at all unless you can be pleasant and polite."
Miss Evelyn Tripp presently appeared in a wonderful toilet, all lace and twinkling jets. She exclaimed over Carroll's marvellous gain in inches, and Doris' brilliant colour, and kissed and cooed over Richard.
"They're certainly the dearest children in the world," she said. "I've been simply wild to see them all these months, and you, too, Betty dear! I've so much to tell you!"
She twined her arm caressingly about Doris, and smiled brilliantly down at the little girl, who gazed with round appreciative eyes at the visitor's gown and at the jewels which sparkled on her small white hands.
"Both of my front teeth are all wiggly," whispered the child, feeling that something out of the ordinary was demanded of her in a social way. "I can wiggle them with my tongue."
"Can you, darling? How remarkable! Never mind; you'll soon have some nice new ones that won't wiggle."
Doris giggled rapturously. "We're going to have ice-cream for dinner," was her next confidence. "But I'm not going to act s'prised when Celia brings it in. We've all promised mother we won't, even if it's pink. I hope it'll be pink; don't you?"