“Aunty ’Genia,” it said, “Aunty ’Genia, I’ve wunned away from nurse and I want the stowy about when you was a little girl,” and from round the corner, running at full speed, appeared Floss, breathless and shaggier even than her wont.
“You’ve runned away from nurse, Floss?” said Eugenia, seating herself as she spoke on a garden bench beside her, and lifting the child on to her knee. “I don’t know that you should have done that. We had better find nurse first, or she won’t know where you are.”
“I don’t want her to know,” replied Floss, opening her eyes and establishing herself more securely in her present quarters; “that’s why I wunned away.”
She evidently was prepared to resist all recognition of established authority by her new friend; but nurse, less easily deluded than the tiny rebel had imagined, at this juncture fortunately made her appearance, proving by no means loth to accept a half-hour’s holiday.
“I will bring Miss Floss in myself,” said Eugenia. “You can show me the way to the nursery, can’t you, Floss?”
And nurse retreated, murmuring hopes that Mrs Chancellor would not find her charge too troublesome, and inwardly not a little astonished at the whimsical infant’s unwonted sociability.
Floss’s next proceeding was to peer up deliberately into her aunt’s eyes, pushing Eugenia’s hat back a little off her face, the better to pursue her investigations.
“What are you looking at, Floss?” asked her aunt. “I don’t like my hat at the back of my head; the sun makes my eyes ache.”
“Your eyes is wed,” observed Floss with satisfaction, quite ignoring Eugenia’s mild remonstrance. “You’ve been cwying. Why do you cwy? Aunt Woma never does.”
“Doesn’t she?” said Eugenia. “Perhaps she does, only you don’t see. Most people cry sometimes, when they are sorry.”