"The old lady is cranky to-day. She don't feel comfortable in her inside," he would say; and Mattie would repeat the remark to Poppie, as if it were her own. There was one word in it, however, which, among others of her vocabulary, making the antique formality of her speech so much the more ludicrous, she could not pronounce.
"The old lady don't feel over comfibittle in her inside to-day. We must drop it, or she'll be worse," Mattie would gravely remark to Poppie, and the tumult would be heard no more that day, or at least for an hour, when, if they were so long together, it might break out again.
Every now and then some strange explosion of Arab habits or ways of thinking would shock Mattie: but from seeing that it did not shock Miss Burton so much, she became, by degrees, considerably less of a little prig. Childhood revived in her more and more.
"Will you come with me to-day, Poppie, to see the wild beasts?" said Lucy.
"But they'll eat us, won't they?"
"Oh, no, child. What put that into your head?"
"I thought they always did."
"They always would if they could. But they can't."
"Do they pull their teeth out, then?"
"You come and see. I'll take care of you."