"Don't bring that rubbish in here," she cried with a return to her normal manner. "You'll frighten the child out of its life."
"Oh! Uncle Joe," cried Millie, as Bindle deposited the toys on the table. "I think you're the darlingest uncle in all the world."
There were tears in the eyes she turned on him.
Mrs. Bindle swung her back on the pair, as Bindle proceeded to explain the virtues and mechanism of his purchases. She was convinced that such monstrosities would produce in little Joseph nothing less than convulsions, probably resulting in permanent injury to his mind.
Whilst they were thus engaged, Mrs. Bindle walked up and down the kitchen, absorbed in the baby.
"Auntie Lizzie," cried Millie presently, "please bring Little Joe here."
Mrs. Bindle hesitated. "They'll frighten him, Millie," she said, with a gentleness in her voice that caused Bindle to look quickly up at her.
To disprove the statement, and with all the assurance of a young mother, Millie seized the rag-doll and a diminutive golliwog, and held them over the recumbent form of Joseph the Second.
In an instant a pudgy little hand was thrust up, followed immediately after by another, and Joseph the Second demonstrated with all his fragile might that, as far as toys were concerned, he was at one with his uncle.
Bindle beamed with delight. Seizing the monkey-on-a-stick he proceeded vigorously to work it up and down. The pudgy hands raised themselves again.