“Of course you are, Miss Pen. Be thankful to the Almighty for it, and don’t worry me.”
Pen stuck out her tongue, made a hideous face at nurse, and darted from the room. She stood in the passage for a minute or two reflecting, then she slipped round and went in the direction of Pauline’s bedroom.
The bandbox chock-full of those vulgar presents had been pushed into the back part of a dark cupboard which stood in the little girl’s room. Penelope knew all about that. She opened the cupboard, disappeared into its shadows, and then returned with an orange-colored tidy and a chocolate-red pin-cushion. Having made a bag of the front of her frock, she slipped the pin-cushion and tidy into it, and ran off to the kitchen. Aunt Sophia visited the kitchen each morning, but Pen knew that the hour of her daily visit had not yet arrived. Betty was there, surreptitiously reading a copy of the Faithful Friend. She started when Pen darted into her domain.
“Now what is it, Miss Penelope? For goodness’ sake, miss, get out of this. Your aunt would be flabbergasted to see you here.”
For response Pen planted down in front of Betty the orange-colored tidy and the chocolate-red pin-cushion.
“Here’s some things,” she said. “Here’s two nice things for a nice body. What will that nice body give for these nice things?”
“My word!” said Betty, “they’re natty.”
She took up the pin-cushion and examined it all over. She then laid it down again. She next took up the tidy, turned it from side to side, and placed it, with a sigh of distinct desire, beside the pin-cushion.
“Them’s my taste,” she said. “I like those sort of fixed colors. I can’t abide the wishy-washy tastes of the present day.”
“They’s quite beautiful, ain’t they?” said Pen. “I’ll give them to you if you will——”