'Two eggs,' said Frederick.
Miss Oliphant twisted the knife in the wound.
'There seems to be plenty of cake, too. How nice for you! Still, I should be careful, if I were you. It looks rather rich. I never could understand,' she went on, addressing Nurse Wilks in a voice which Frederick, who was now about seven years old, considered insufferably grown-up and affected, 'why people should find any enjoyment in stuffing and gorging and making pigs of themselves.'
'Boys will be boys,' argued Nurse Wilks.
'I suppose so,' sighed Miss Oliphant. 'Still, it's all rather unpleasant.'
A slight but well-defined glitter appeared in Nurse Wilks's eyes. She detected a tendency to hoighty-toightiness in her young guest's manner, and hoighty-toightiness was a thing to be checked.
'Girls,' she said, 'are by no means perfect.'
'Ah!' breathed Frederick, in rapturous adhesion to the sentiment.
'Girls have their little faults. Girls are sometimes inclined to be vain. I know a little girl not a hundred miles from this room who was so proud of her new panties that she ran out in the street in them.'
'Nanna!' cried Miss Oliphant pinkly.