“I warn’t out,” persisted Prissy.
“See that thou bain’t then,” returned her uncompromising parent; and as the weeks and the months passed by without John having any further occasion to find fault with his first-born, it may reasonably be presumed that she heeded his admonition.
Further, in a general way, she gave satisfaction at the Hollow, where she was on good terms with every one, unless, indeed, it might be Master Marsden, who was, as she took various opportunities of informing him, an “ill-behaved limb,” and no “young gentleman.”
The last occasion on which Priscilla found herself moved to this confession of faith, was when she boxed Master Marsden’s ears for holding Muff, and instructing Leonard to rub turpentine over her coat, preliminary—so she ascertained from Lally, who came rushing to her in an agony of distress—to “making a bonfire of my poor tittens.”
That Master Marsden never forgave this interference with his legitimate pleasures, and that his wrath was very grievously moved, both at Lally’s tale-bearing and Prissy’s prompt interference, may be gathered from the fact that he informed Lally she was a “nasty little tell-tale tit.”
“Lally not,” lamented the child.
“Yes, you are—and ‘your tongue shall be slit, and every little puppy-dog shall get a little bit,’” persisted Master Marsden, with his own tongue very far out; adding, to Priscilla, by way of appendix to this poem—
“As for you, you ugly, snub-nosed, green-eyed little——”
“No names, Harry,” interposed Alick, who chanced to come up at the instant; “and what have you been doing with the cat? What’s all this, I ask?” and he looked angrily round the group.
“I was only going to singe her hair; it is too long, like some people’s tongues,” answered the boy, impudently.