“All right,” said Geoffrey; “we’ll wait if you don’t take too long.” Loveday, being the only one possessed of any wealth, had to be treated with consideration. “Cut along, infant!”
Loveday had actually taken two steps, but Geoffrey’s words brought her back again.
“I don’t think you ought to call us infants,” she said severely. “It doesn’t sound at all nice, and if you do it again I don’t think I shall give you a single sweet. We aren’t infants; father said so. Infants are—are—well, we aren’t infants.”
“I think we will go on and begin to swing,” said Geoffrey, to tease her—“don’t you, Prissy? If we wait for the end of this conversation I am afraid the tree will die of old age.”
“I don’t know how you can like to be such a rude boy,” said Loveday cuttingly. “Nobody thinks rude boys funny or nice.”
There were two sweet-shops quite near to Dr. Carlyon’s house, and the children were allowed to go alone to both of them. Mrs. Tickell’s was on one side of the street, and Mrs. Wall’s was almost opposite. Mrs. Tickell was the favourite with the children; she was always more pleasant and smiling and patient than Mrs. Wall, and gave more generous measure. On the other hand, the children found Mr. Tickell rather a drawback. True, he was not often in the shop, as he was generally busy in the bakehouse, for the Tickells, in addition to having sweets and apples, and prize-packets and little china figures, made cakes and pasties and jam-tarts to sell. But when Mr. Tickell was in the shop he always stood by the half-door, and asked the most trying questions, such as: “Now, can you say to me your six times right through without a mistake?” or, “Can you tell me when Henry the Eighth began to reign?” Once he even asked Geoffrey to say his dates right through, before the Conquest and all. It was really dreadful, and as he always stood by the door, there was no escaping him.
But Mrs. Tickell was so kind, and Emily, their daughter, was so beloved by the children, that they bore with Mr. Tickell for their sakes, and the shop remained their favourite.
Mr. Wall was of no account at all; the children had a notion that he would be kind if he were left to himself, but that he was afraid of Mrs. Wall. He very seldom spoke, and when he did it was only to say something that they all thought very silly, such as “Fine weather this for little ducks,” or something equally aggravating. So they put him down in their minds as a weak creature, and took very little interest in him. Mrs. Wall was a very solemn and unsmiling person. She never grew friendly as Mrs. Tickell did. Priscilla heard some one once telling a story of the Walls’ only son, who had died, she gathered, in some tragic, mysterious way a long time ago, before she was born or was old enough to remember anything. But what struck her even more than the story was the remark, “And Mrs. Wall has never smiled since.”
After that, whenever she was within sight of Mrs. Wall, Priscilla was always watching her to see if this was true or not. She would hardly believe that she did not forget sometimes, and smile before she remembered; but Priscilla had never yet seen her do so.
“It must be dreadful for Mr. Wall to have her always looking so—so cross,” she confided to her father one day. “As for him, I don’t think he could smile if he wanted to; his mouth is so very wide it couldn’t possibly go any wider.”