She took off the child's hat and cloak, and, carrying her into an adjoining room, bathed her face and hands, much to the delight of the princess.
"I'd 'a' washed her up this mornin' if I hadn't been 'fraid she'd get mad about it," Joe said, regretting most sincerely that he had not attended to the little maiden's toilet in a proper manner.
"What's the good? Old Mis' Carter says dirt makes children healthy, an' if that's straight I should say your princess needs a couple of quarts to put her in trim."
"'MAY WE COME IN AN' STAY A LITTLE WHILE?'"
"She ain't like Mis' Carter's kids, so what's the use to keep throwin' them up all the time. Say, Plums, look at the old woman now! Why didn't I think of cuddlin' the princess in that style?"
Their hostess, having made the little maid more presentable, gathered the child to her breast, as she rocked to and fro in a capacious armchair, singing a lullaby, which speedily closed the two brown eyes in slumber.
"I shouldn't feel very bad if the old woman served me in the same way," Master Plummer said, with a long-drawn sigh, as he straightened himself up in the wooden chair. "I'd rather lay right down on the floor an' go to sleep than do anything else I know of."
"But you mustn't, Plums, you mustn't," Joe whispered, nervously. "If you should do anything like that she'd think we was more'n half fools, both of us."