"I am not a baby. At home, gerrels of six will not be babies. I'm not wantin' the stirabout at all, thank you."
"Sheila, you are speaking with an atrocious accent!"
For the first time that night the Atom's sombre eyes lit with a gleam of satisfaction.
"Accent, is it? Sure and 'tisn't me own native accent I'd be ashamed of then!" she retorted.
"It isn't the accent of ladies and gentlemen, Sheila! You are a rude and foolish little girl!"
Calm and unabashed, the Atom responded with fervour.
"'Tis the way many of my best friends spake at home—always—wakin' and sleepin' they spake like that, and I'll be spakin' like it, too."
With her black little head well up, and her absurd pig-tail at an acute angle, she waited for Miss Kezia's response.
But Denis interposed from the doorway with a judicious appeal to her sense of economy.
"I say, Aunt Kezia, I've lit your candle, and it's spluttering like a dumb man asking for a tip!"