"Dear, dear Grandpapa!" she cried, clasping her floury hands, "oh! I'm so glad you've come to see me make a pie all by myself. It's for Polly, and it's to be full of plums; Jefferson let me make it."
"Jefferson? And where is he, pray?" cried Mr. King irately. "Pretty fellow, to bring you down to these apartments, and then go off and forget you. Jefferson!" he called sharply, "here, where are you?"
"Oh, Grandpapa!" exclaimed Phronsie in dire distress, "I sent him; Jefferson didn't want to go, Grandpapa dear, really and truly, he went because I asked him."
"If you please, sir," began Jefferson, hurrying up, "I only stepped off a bit to the cellar. Bassett sent down a lot of turnips, they ain't first-rate, and"—
"All right," said Mr. King, cutting him short with a wave of his hand, "if Miss Phronsie sent you off, it's all right; I don't want to hear any more elaborate explanations."
"Little Miss hasn't been alone but a few minutes," said Jefferson in a worried way.
"And see," said Phronsie, turning back to her efforts, while one hand grasped the old gentleman's palm, "I've almost got it to look like Jefferson's. Almost, haven't I?" she asked, regarding it anxiously.
"It will be the most beautiful pie," cried Mr. King, a hearty enthusiasm succeeding his irritability, "that ever was baked. I wish you'd make me one sometime, Phronsie."
"Do you?" she cried in a tremor of delight, "and will you really have it on the table, and cut it with Aunt Whitney's big silver knife?"
"That I will," declared Mr. King solemnly.