“Oh, how lovely! Oh, you dear, kind Miss Potts! Look, Geoffrey; we can both use it. Isn’t it lovely?” and Priscilla held out a box of paints, just such another as they had bought for Loveday. “And they are sans poison, too.”
“Good!” cried Geoffrey. “Now I’ll be able to paint for you while you look on. Miss Potts, you are a dear; you understand a fellow’s feelings before he understands them himself.”
Priscilla leaned up to kiss her thanks.
“I wonder how you always know exactly what people want?” she said gravely.
“P’r’aps it’s through my having a pretty good memory,” said Miss Potts, flushing and smiling with pleasure. “I seem able to remember what I used to think I’d like when I was little myself.”
“And then, were you very glad—as glad as I am—when you got what you’d been thinking about?” asked Priscilla.
“I never got it, my dear,” said Miss Potts; “’twas all in my thoughts, and never got beyond. But I had a fine lot of pleasure that way; ’twas almost as good as having the things themselves, I think.”
“Oh no, not quite,” said Priscilla, turning to her paint-box again.
Then Nurse came in with the tea, and laid it on a table close to Priscilla’s sofa. Miss Potts seemed rather nervous and fluttery at having tea there with the children, but very pleased; and Nurse smiled on her, and admired the paint-box, and brought in some especial cakes, because she remembered Miss Potts liked them, and everything and everybody was as nice as nice could be.
It was a beautiful tea that they had—at least, to them it seemed so, and Miss Potts often afterwards spoke of it, and sat and thought about it in the long, quiet evenings she spent alone in the dark little parlour behind her shop. They did not hurry over the meal—in fact, they lingered so long that Mrs. Carlyon returned before they had done, and presently the carriage drove up, bringing back Dr. Carlyon from his afternoon rounds.