Her quick feet went pat on the cellar–steps, while her father was yet perpending; and she came back not a whit out of breath, but sweetly fresh and excited.
“Such a race, pa; because I know of one family of cockroaches, and half suspect another. They are so very imprudent. Robert Garnet says that they stay at home, and keep their Christmas domestically, and I need not run for fear of them, at least till the end of April. And perhaps he is right, because he knows and studies everything nasty. Only I canʼt believe what he says about ants, because it contradicts Solomon, who was so very much older. Now, you paternal darling, let me froth it up for you.”
“Thank the Lord for as good a meal as ever one of His children was blessed with.”
The parson stood up as he said these words, and put his thick but not large hands together, among the crumbs on the tablecloth.
“Now, if you please, the leastest—double superlative, pa, you know, like πρώτιστος, and something else—oh, they will pluck me at Oxford!—the very leastest little drop of the old French cognac we bought for parochial rheumatism, with one thin slice of lemon, an ebullition of water, and half a knob of sugar.”
Before John could remonstrate, there it was, all winking at him, and begging to be sniffed before sipping.
“My pet, you are so premature. How can I trust your future? You never give me time to consider a subject, even in the first of its bearings.”
“To be sure not, father. You know quite well you would take at least eight different views of the matter, and multiply them into eight others of people I never heard of. Now the pipe, dear. You shall have it here, because it is so much warmer. You know you canʼt fill it properly.”
So the parson, happy in having a child who could fill a pipe better than he could, leaned back in his favourite chair, which Amy had wheeled in for him, and held his long clay in his left hand, while his right played with her hair, as she sat at his feet, and coaxed him.
“Sermon all ready, dear?”