"Lawks a mercy on me, no," said Flora. "Go along with you, do, you foolish thing."
"My dear! my dear!" said Lady Ascot.
"She is imitating old Alwright," explained Gus. "She told me she was going to. Lord Saltire says, 'Maria! Maria! Maria!—you are intolerably foolish, Maria!'"
"Don't be naughty, Gus," said Lady Ascot.
"Well, so he did, for I heard him. Don't mind us; we don't mean any harm. I say, Lady Ascot, has she any right to bite and scratch?"
"Who?" said Lady Ascot.
"Why, that Flora. She bit Alwright because she wouldn't lend her Mrs. Moko."
"Oh, you dreadful fib!" said Flora. "Oh, you wicked boy! you know where you'll go to if you tell such stories. Lady Ascot, I didn't bite her; I only said she ought to be bit. She told me that she couldn't let me have Mrs. Moko, because she was trying caps on her. And then she told nurse that I should never have her again, because I squeezed her flat. And so she told a story. And it was not I who squeezed her flat, but that boy, who is worse than Ananias and Sapphira. And I made a bogey of her in the nursery door, with a broom and a counterpane, just as he was coming in. And he shut the door on her head, and squeezed a piece of paint off her nose as big as half-a-crown."
Lady Ascot was relieved by being informed that the Mrs. Moko aforesaid was only a pasteboard image, the size of life, used by the lady's maid for fitting caps.
There were many evenings like this; a week or so was passed without any change. At last there was a move towards London.