"What does she call it now, may I ask?" said the doctor, with an irritating smile.
"Patti-coker—what you s'pose?" was the rash reply. Poor Lady Magnifico! Little tingles of shame ran down her fingers as soon as she had spoken, for she saw, by the glances between her landlady and the doctor, that she had made another mistake.
"O, I like to keep house," cried Fly, holding up her trailing robes, and dancing over a carpet seam. "What's this goldy thing?"
"Bellows, Toddlekins, to blow up the fire. See me fill out their leather cheeks."
"What pretty little blozers! Let me blow 'em!"
There was a second dash upon the stove, and another scorch in the slip.
"There ought to be a fence built round that stove," said the anxious father.
"Come, Mother Hubbard, have you seen all there is in the cupboard? Can't you give this poor old dog a bone?"
"Well, here I am with the care of the family on my shoulders," thought Mother Hubbard, winking fast behind the green spectacles, and recalling uneasily the couplet her father often repeated:—
"Think well before you pursue it;
But when you begin, go through it."