"Bryan O'Lynn had no breeches to wear,
He bought a sheepskin for to make him a pair,
With the skinny side out, and the woolly side in,
'They're warm in the winter,' said Bryan O'Lynn."
"I suppose it would be quite impossible to suppress this child?" Uncle James lisped with deceptive mildness. "I observe that she joins in the conversation always, with great intelligence and her mouth full. It might be better, perhaps, if she emptied her mouth. However, I suppose it would be impossible to teach her."
"Not at all," Beth answered for herself, cheerfully. "I'm not too stupid to empty my mouth! Only just you tell me what it is you want. Don't bottle things up. I expect I've been speaking with my mouth full ever since I came, and you've been hating me for it; but you never told me."
"May I ask," said Uncle James politely, "by whom you were informed that I 'bottled things up'?"
"Ah, that would be telling," said Beth, and recommenced gobbling her pudding, to the intense relief of some of the party.
Great-Aunt Victoria Bench, sitting upright opposite, looked across the table at the child, and a faint smile flickered over her wrinkled rose-leaf cheek.
Beth finished her pudding, dropped her spoon on her plate with a clatter, leant back in her chair, and sighed with satisfaction. She possessed a horrid fascination for Uncle James. Almost everything she did was an offence to him, yet he could not keep his eyes off her or let her alone.
"Pudding seems to be a weakness of hers," he now observed. "I hope her voracity is satisfied. I should say that it resembles the voracity of the caterpillar."
"What's voracity, Aunt Victoria?" Beth asked.
"Greediness," Aunt Victoria rejoined sententiously.