"Neither we do, old lady!"
He seized her round the waist and ran her downstairs to her room.
"Nell," called out the Atom, "aren't you ready? Janie and Benny have come!"
"O dear, then hurry I must! Molly, I wish you were coming, too!"
"I don't! I wouldn't for anything," she whispered eagerly. "I shall go and talk to Aunt Kezia!"
"Molly, you're getting too good altogether for the likes of us! Don't, in your exaltation, forget to shut Jim up. Benny, what big eyes! Janie, how's the cold? Duckies, ask Sarah if we didn't leave two nice cakes at tea. Coming, Denis! Good-bye, Aunt Kezia. Molly, there's a packet of butter-scotch somewhere—find it for them. Good-bye!"
Mark Yovil greeted the Atom as an old friend.
"Of course," said Sheila Pat, anxiously, "I don't know which ladies you've spoke to before I came."
"Oh, that doesn't count," he reassured her.
Nell looked round the room interestedly. There were not many people there yet. Standing by a lounge talking to a girl with an elaborately dressed head of colourless hair, she saw Ted Lancaster. Another girl, younger, sat between her and an older, stouter edition of them both, obviously the mother. Nell had a quick thought of a hairdresser's shop, the three heads were so stiffly held, so carefully dressed. Then she wondered, humorously, whether the husband and father didn't get tired of seeing his wife in three stages of age and size.