Suddenly she closed the knife sharply. "Darn it! I've cut myself again," she said. She dropped the knife down the neck of her blouse and began to suck her finger. "Here, let me have Henty, Florence Dombey. Don't try to pig it, all the time. You know I don't get hardly any time to read."
The furniture and the remains of the cigar-box cover followed the knife into her blouse and she opened the book. But before she had begun to read there was a sleepy little call from below.
"Yes, baby!" called the child. "Here's Lydia, up in the tree! Watch me, dearie! See me come down. Here comes Florence Dombey first."
With some difficulty the book followed the knife and the furniture into the blouse. Florence Dombey, being hastily inverted, showed a length of light martin cord wrapped about her cotton legs.
"Here she comes, baby! Catch now for Lydia."
The baby below, a tiny plump replica of Lydia, sat up with a gurgle of delight and held up her arms as Florence Dombey, dangling unhappily, upside down, on the end of the marlin cord, was lowered carefully into the perambulator.
"And here I come. Watch me, baby!"
With a swing light and agile as a young monkey, Lydia let herself down, landing with a spring of which an acrobat might have boasted, beside the perambulator.
"There, sweetness!"—kissing the baby—"first we'll fix Florence
Dombey, then we'll start for home."
"Florence, home wiv baby."