Jasper swung his boy lightly to the ground. “Off with you!” he cried with a laugh, and Elyot scuttled away. “Now, Polly,” as he put his arm around her, and drew her to a seat, “the fact is, I thought you wouldn’t sit down and go over those books to-night if I brought out the bag.”
“And so I wouldn’t,” declared Polly. “Of course not, with the dear old bag waiting. How could I?”
“That’s just it,” said Jasper; “and it’s not fair for me to bring the bag, with those waiting, either;” he nodded over at the untied packet and the new books scattered about. “You ought to have at least one go at them before being tied down to business matters.”
Polly broke loose from him, and ran over to the easy-chair. “And did you think I would so much as look at these once?” she cried, her face flushing up to the brown waves. “Oh! oh! I just detest them now.” She looked down at the pile with the same face that she carried in the little brown house when the old stove burned Mamsie’s birthday cake.
“But, Polly,” said Jasper, hurrying over to comfort her, “you see it’s just this way. I’m tying you down too much to business detail, and you ought to be enjoying yourself more, dear.”
“And don’t you suppose, Jasper,” cried Polly, turning on his troubled face a radiant one, “that lovely old bag is just the dearest dear in all the world next to you and the children? Oh, say you will never leave it again! Do say so, Jasper;” she clung to him.
“I am so afraid I’m making your life too full of care, Polly,” said Jasper gravely, “to bring the bag out every night. And this evening we might go over the new books, and have a break in the routine for once.”
“And let you work over all your papers alone, Jasper,” cried Polly, aghast. “O Jasper!”
“Dance me up and down, daddy!” screamed Elyot.