“She sat here, and she made me have a good fire.”
“Quite right. Why should you be cold, Dumps?”
“But I thought, father, that you did not want us to be extravagant?”
“It is far more extravagant, let me tell you, Dumps, to get a severe cold and to have doctors’ bills to pay.”
I was startled by this sentiment of father’s, and treasured it up to retail to Hannah in the future.
“But tell me more about her,” he said.
Then I related exactly what had happened. He was much amused, and after a time he said, with a laugh, “And so you got tea for her?”
“Yes; she insisted on it. She wouldn’t let me off getting that tea for all the world. I didn’t mind it, of course—indeed, I quite enjoyed it—but what I did find hard was bringing up the hod of coal from the coal-cellar.”
“Good practice, Dumps. Arms are made to be useful.”
“So they are,” I answered. “And feet are made to run with.”