“Then we shall have to wash them up.”
“That is very simple. Put them all in the sink and turn the tap on.”
He was suiting the action to the word when Annie stopped him.
“Well, don’t let us go away then, because the fire might go out, and then poor Mrs. Briggs might find it cold when she comes back,” said he, with unexpected solicitude.
He did not want to break up this tête-à-tête, in which Annie, for the first time, had been in her most charming, happiest mood with him.
“Do stay,” he said coaxingly. “Let us tell each other stories by the firelight. I’ll begin; I’ll tell you a beauty that I made up myself, all about ogres and a good little girl and a bad little girl.”
He was patting Mrs. Briggs’ rocking-chair persuasively, and at last Annie allowed herself to fall into it, while Aubrey went on in a chirping tone:
“There was once a very dreadful ogre as bad as he was ugly—he had a mouth as big as mine—and he had for his play-fellows and companions all the bad little boys and girls in the neighborhood; but of course the good boys and girls ran away as soon as they saw him, especially one little girl who felt quite sure that he would eat her up if she spoke civilly to him. So she was always as distant as she could be, and sometimes made the poor ogre quite uncomfortable, which of course was quite right and proper; until one day she met the poor ogre when somebody had stolen his dinner—and hers too, by the way—and instead of eating her up as she expected, he did his best to make himself as agreeable as circumstances would permit; and——What are you laughing at, Miss Langton?”
“I was laughing at something I was thinking about, Mr. Cooke. You can’t expect me to keep my attention fixed on your idiotic nursery stories.”
“Oh! And so at last the good little girl got quite saucy; and—I really must beg you to restrain your mirth at your own private thoughts, Miss Langton. It is not courteous when a gentleman is doing his best to be entertaining—and instructive as well. To resume. And so the ogre wondered to himself whether the good little girl would feel quite sure for the future that he didn’t want to eat her up, and whether she would think he was not such a bad fellow after all and not half a bad cook at a pinch. That is all, Miss Langton, unless you would like the moral.”