“I been a-tuttin’.”
“Scissors! Oh, Mildred, you know how afraid your mother is for you to play with scissors! What am I to do with you?”
Mildred made a sudden resolution. Why not throw herself on the mercy of this new aunt for protection. She darted by her mother and sprang into the ready arms of Nance.
“I been a-tuttin’ a bunch of vi’lets for my Aunt Nance—an’ I been a-fwingin’ her curtains all pretty for her.”
In one hand she had tightly clasped a huge pair of shears and in the other the violets which she had ruthlessly culled from the pot sent by Mrs. McLean.
“Oh, Mildred, see what you have done,” agonized Molly. “Mrs. McLean sent them to you, Nance. I am so sorry they are spoiled.”
“But they are not,” declared Nance, trying to keep down the blush that would come at the knowledge that Andy McLean’s mother had shown her this attention. “We can put this dear little bunch in water, and I am sure there are many more buds to bloom. Let’s see, Mildred.”
“’Deed they is! I wouldn’t cut no li’l baby buds off for nothin’ or nothin’. ’Tain’t no bad Milly in this house.”
“But the curtains!” wailed poor Molly when she viewed the neat fringes that her daughter had so carefully slashed with the great shears.
“Now don’t worry about that,” insisted Nance. “Mildred and I are going to cut them off and hem them up. Aren’t we, Mildred? Very short curtains are all the style now, anyhow.”