"Yes, Toni." Lu lay obediently down, soothed by the girl's kind tone. "I'll go to sleep all right if ... if Ma'll come up and say good-night!"
"Of course she will!" Toni smiled at the child's involuntary clinging to the mother who had punished her. "I'll tell her you're waiting—and now I must fly! Good-night, Ducky, sleep well!"
She kissed the child, her eyes very soft as she bent over the bed; and then, picking up the tray, she ran swiftly downstairs again and re-entered the room where tea was rapidly drawing to an end.
"How kind-hearted you are, Miss Toni," said Mr. Dowson admiringly as she slipped into her seat beside him. "Lots of people would have said the kiddy deserved to be whipped and sent to bed."
"I daresay she did, but that didn't make it any better—for her," laughed Toni, with a vivid remembrance of her aunt's corrective powers. "I know what Auntie's whippings are like, you see, and they're no joke!"
"You don't mean to say Mrs. Gibbs ever dared to ... to punish you, Miss Antonia?" His pale-blue eyes were aghast at the thought of such sacrilege.
"Oh, rather!" Toni laughed joyously at his face of horror. "She's whipped me heaps, of times.... I expect I deserved it, too, for I can assure you I was never a pattern child!"
"I ... I would like to see anyone venture to lay a hand on you," said Mr. Dowson earnestly—too earnestly for Toni's liking. "Miss Antonia, if you ... if you would only give me the right ..."
Bang! An hilariously-disposed little Gibbs had exploded a cracker in the young man's ear; and Mr. Dowson, blushing to the very edge of his extremely high collar, subsided rather wrathfully.
Much to Antonia's relief the party rose from the table a moment later; and with a stern determination in her mind not to allow Mr. Dowson another opportunity to make the avowal which she knew very well trembled on his lips, Toni bustled gaily about, helping to clear the table and make things ready for the evening's festivity.