"There is something about that child," she [Pg 16] once confided to Cook, "that makes me feel as weak as water. Looks at you as though your 'air was coming down on your face smudged. Says nothink, but he's a masterful one. Be a terror some day!" [Pg 16] Meanwhile Pipette, in whose charitable little soul a new and splendid scheme of outdoor relief had just sprung into being, asked, in a tone of suppressed excitement— "Mr. Pipes, please, does your Terriphone go straight to our house?" "As straight as straight, me lady," replied Mr. Pipes, who affected an easy jocularity when conversing with Pipette. "Ooh!" Pipette turned to her brother. "Pip, amind me to tell you somethin' when we get home." Pip turned a cold glance upon her. "You'll tell me all about it on the way there, I expect." "I won't!" cried Pipette indignantly. "Oh, yes, you will. Women can't keep nothin' to theirselves." This pronouncement, delivered in Mr. Evans's most impressive manner, roused Emily and Mr. Pipes to unseemly mirth, and nearly reduced Pipette to tears. Mr. Pipes remarked that Pip was a "caution," while Emily summed him up as a "cure." Shortly after that, Emily and Mr. [Pg 17] Pipes having made a now familiar reference to "the same old spot at half-past four on Sunday," the visit terminated with the usual expressions of good-will, and the children were taken home to tea. [Pg 17] Pipette's offended dignity held out till next morning, when, as soon as the banging of the front door announced that Father had gone off in his brougham for his daily round, she proposed a visit to the Consulting Room. "In the morning? What for?" said Pip. Pipette was positively heaving with suppressed excitement. "You go there and wait," she said, "and I'll run down to Cook a minute, and then we'll—no, I won't tell you yet! Go on!"
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