"Mother," cried the boy. "Mother does all that--except for me. I dress myself--I take my own bath. Mother says I'm growing quite inde--in-de--"
"Pendent!" screamed Moppet across the table. "What a silly boy you are: you always forget the names of things."
Moppet was getting excited. The small cheeks were flushed, and the big eyes were getting bigger, and Moppet was inclined to gesticulate a good deal when she talked, and to pat the table-*cloth with two little hands to give point to her speech.
"Moppet," said Mr. Danby, "the hot cakes are getting into your head. I propose an adjournment to Bedfordshire."
"No! no! NO! Uncle Tom. We ain't to go yet, is we?" pleaded the child, snuggling close up to Sir John's waistcoat, with a settled conviction that he was the higher authority. The lapse in grammar was the momentary result of excitement. In a general way Moppet's tenses and persons were as correct as if she had been twenty.
"I think you ought to be tired, after your long journey," said the baronet.
"But it wasn't a long journey. We had dinner first, and in the morning we walked on the Hoe. Isn't that a funny name for a place? And we saw the sea, and Uncle Tom told us of the--"
"Spanish Arcadia," interrupted Laddie, who felt it was his turn now, "and how Drake and the other captains were playing bowls on the Hoe, just where we were standing that very minute, when the news of the Spanish ships came and they went off to meet them; and there was a storm, and there was no fighting wanted, for the storm smashed all the ships and they went back to King Philip without any masts, and Queen Elizabeth went on horseback to Tilbury, and that was the end of the Arcadia."
"For an historical synopsis I don't call that bad," said Mr. Danby; "nevertheless, I recommend Bedfordshire if our little friends have finished their tea."
"I have," said Lassie, with a contented yawn.