"Yes, dear, and you'll soon be heaps cleverer than I am," said she, stooping to kiss his curly head as she tied the apron about her shapely hips; and then, giving him a smiling nod, she vanished into the kitchen, while Spike laboured through the long columns headed "Help Wanted." And presently, as she moved light-footed to and fro in the kitchen, he heard her singing softly to herself, an old, old song of other days that had often been his lullaby when he was a small, motherless armful of sleepiness hushed in her young, protecting clasp.
"Arthur!" she called.
"Hello!" he answered.
"Are you hungry?"
"You bet I am!"
A long pause, whereafter ensued the following conversation between kitchen and parlour:
Hermione. "Boy dear!"
Spike. "Hello!"
Hermione. "Be a dear and lay the cloth for me!"
Spike. "Right-o!"