"No, never! God never made mammy's twins—no mo' dan he made Dilsy thar. Dey iz prezak like dem monkeys I seed de time I went en town ter de circus."
Now Polly was not an impartial judge of the twins, for she had been installed as their nurse, and she hated to nurse.
"For shame, Polly! Those nice little babies. And then, besides, as God made all things, he made monkeys too, of course."
"No, never! You can't make me berleeve dat. Gord nerver wase hees valerbel time maken' monkeys."
That was the "last straw that broke the camel's back." After trying so hard to be patient, and especially as she knew it was nothing but pure contrariness in Polly, for only the Sunday before she had answered every question correctly, and added some pious interpolations exceedingly gratifying to her young teacher.
So she got up, went to her refractory pupil, and lifted her forefinger by way of giving emphasis to her words.
But Polly, recognizing that her little mistress's temperature was rising, felt a proportionate rise in her own, rolled her eyes till nothing but the whites were visible, and stuck her lower lip out.
It would be impossible to conceive of a creature uglier or more aggravating looking than Polly, when she did that way.
In a flash, down came Roberta's little soft pink palm on her cheek.
Mrs. Marsden happened to be passing on her way to the quarters to visit a sick servant, and witnessed the performance. She was amused, but worried too, that Roberta had allowed herself to be so provoked, for it almost made a farce of the whole thing; and she knew how much in earnest her little daughter really was. The child's flushed cheeks and flashing eyes brought back, O so vividly! another face and another pair of flashing orbs so like hers. There were tears in Mrs. Marsden's eyes when she went in the summer-house and took her seat on the bench that circled around it.