“I see you’ve spoiled him pretty completely,” pursued Miss Cottle. “But I’ll soon get him in hand.”
She compressed her thin lips.
“He got into a regular tantrum to-night because I took a book of his to look at. ‘Vallable Inf’mation,’ he calls it. Nearly every word in it is spelled wrong. I wonder at you for permitting anything of the sort. I took the book away from him. Here it is.”
Barbara looked at the woman in a sudden panic of apprehension.
“Oh!” she protested, “you ought not to have done that. The book was a birthday present. It is one of Jimmy’s dearest treasures.”
“I believe you said you wanted I should look after James’s education,” intoned the spinster. “If I am to stay here, I shall do it con-sci-en-tiously.”
She pronounced the last word with due regard to every syllable, it being a favorite adverb modifying every possible activity.
Barbara was turning over the pages of the book, several of which were quite covered with Jimmy’s scrawling characters in red ink.
“A Vallable Information ’bout getting mad [she read]. Dont get mad Ezy. It dont Do enny Good, an sum the tim it gets a fello in Trubble. Peg says this is portant.”
Barbara smiled as she shut the covers gently together.