“Don’t, don’t, don’t say such things, Thibs,” cried the child, all eagerness and excitement now, the very opposite of the timid, shrinking girl in the breakfast-room a short time before; and as she spoke she covered the hard face before her with kisses. “You know, you dear, darling old Thibs, I love you. Oh, I do love you so very, very much.”
“I know it’s all shim-sham and pea-shucks,” said Thisbe, grimly; but, without moving her face, rather bending down to meet the kisses.
“No, you don’t think anything of the kind, Thibs, and I won’t have you looking cross at me like papa.”
“It’s all sham, I tell you,” said Thisbe again. “You never love me only when you want anything.”
“Oh! Thibs!” cried the girl with the tears gathering in her eyes; “how can you say that?”
“Because I’m a nasty, hard, cankery, ugly, disagreeable old woman,” said Thisbe, clasping the child to her breast; “and it isn’t true, and you’re my own precious sweet, that you are.”
“And you took away my box out of the room, when I had to go down to papa.”
“But you can’t have a nasty, great, dirty candle-box in your bedroom, my dear.”
“But I want it for a doll’s house, and I’m going to line it with paper, and—do, Thibs, do, do let me have it, please?”
“Oh, very well, I shall have to be getting the moon for you next. I never see such a spoiled child.”