“But Polly! You don’t suppose seriously that your Aunt Maria can disturb my equanimity?”
“Oh! She will worry you with so many tales.”
“About my very naughty family?”
“Yes, yes; you had much better not see her.”
“Because she wants me to get a chaperon for you?”
“Oh! yes—oh! don’t see her.”
“My dear, you can trust me; you happen to be my children, not hers. I would rather have the matter out. I knew there was something wrong from the way little Fly kissed my hand this morning. Show the deputation outside the window into the audience chamber at once, Polly.”
So admonished, the curtains had to be drawn back, the baize door reopened, and Polly—a most unwilling hostess—had to receive her guests. But no words can describe the babel of sounds which there and then filled the Doctor’s room; no words can tell how patiently the blind man listened.
Aunt Maria had a good tale to tell, and it lost nothing in the telling. The story of Scorpion’s disappearance; of the wickedness of David and Fly; of the recovering of the little animal from the man who had bought it, through Flower’s instrumentality; all this she told, following up with the full and particular history of the sale of a valuable diamond. At last—at long last—the good lady stopped for want of breath.
There was a delicious pause, then the Doctor said, quietly: