"I wanted to be good," she wailed, unnerved, when Aunt Anne had her by the shoulder and was catechizing her in the presence of a nightgowned multitude of excited Madigans.
But succor came from an unexpected quarter. "Let the child alone, Anne," growled Madigan, adjusting the segment of the leg of woolen underwear which he wore for a nightcap; and seizing Sissy in his arms, he bore her off to bed.
"Papa's pet! Papa's baby!" mouthed Irene, under her breath, as she danced tauntingly along behind his back.
"Seizing Sissy in his arms, he bore her off to bed"
And Sissy, outraged in all the dignity of her eleven years at being carried like a child, but unspeakably happy in her father's favor, looked over his shoulder with a sheepish, smiling, sleepy face, murmuring, "Sour grapes, Split, sour grapes!"
Afterward, encouraged by the darkness and the strangeness of being laid in bed from her father's arms, Sissy held him a moment by her side.
"When men make promises on paper that they can't keep, father," she whispered, "what do they do?"
"Oh, go to sleep, child! They become bankrupt, I suppose."
"And—and what becomes of the paper?"