The child spoke as usual with a slow flute-like articulation, so that every word could be heard. Reuben and Hannah turned and looked at each other.
'Lord alive!' cried Hannah 'whativer put sich notions into th' chilt's yed?'
David, with a happy twinkle in his eye, held up a hand for silence.
'I don't know, Sandy; give it up.'
Sandy considered a second or two, then said, with the sigh of one who relinquishes speculation in favor of the conventional solution:
'I s'pose God did.'
His tone was dejected, as though he would gladly have come to another conclusion if he could.
'Reuben,' said Hannah with severity, 'hand me that sugar-stick.'
Reuben groped in his pockets for the barley-sugar, which, in spite of Hannah's scoffs, he had bought in Market Street the evening before, 'for t' childer.' He watched his wife in gaping astonishment as he saw her approaching Sandy, with blandishments which, rough and clumsy as they were, had nevertheless the effect of beguiling that young man on to the lap where barley-sugar was to be had. Hannah fed him triumphantly, making loud remarks on his beauty and cleverness.
Meanwhile Louie stood on the other side of the fire, holding Cecile close against her, with a tight defiant grip—her lip twitching contemptuously. David, always sensitively alive to her presence and her moods, insisted in the midst of Sandy's feast that Cecile should have her share. Sandy held out the barley-sugar, following it with wistful eyes. Louie beat down Cecile's grasping hand. 'You shan't spoil your tea—you'll be sick with that stuff!' she said imperiously. Hannah turned, and brought a slow venomous scrutiny to bear upon her niece—on the slim tall figure in the elegant Parisian dress, the daintily curled and frizzled head, the wild angry eyes. Then she withdrew her glance, contented. Louie's evident jealousy appeased her. She had come to Manchester with one fixed determination—not to be 'talked foine to by that hizzy.'