Part 27 (2/2)
”I wish you were here, Grandmamma,” Winifred exclaimed, looking up at it, ”to help me clear up the muddle in my mind! I have a kind of feeling that _you_ would understand.”
The girl's sentimental musings were rudely interrupted by a race between Jimmy and Paddy, who came rus.h.i.+ng through the room, regardless of tea-tables or rugs.
”Jump for it, Paddy!” cried Jim, s.n.a.t.c.hing a piece of cake from the tray, and holding it high in air.
”Don't, Jimmy! You will upset the table.”
”Come on then, Paddy, we'll jump in the hall, where there is no girl to be nervous--I hate nervous people.”
”Whose cane is that, McGregor?” he asked, as he saw an unfamiliar walking-stick on the hall table.
”It belongs to Mr. Flint--he must have forgot it,” the butler answered.
”I say, Fred, has Mr. Flint been here?” Jimmy called out from the bal.u.s.ter, over which he was leaning at imminent risk to life and limb.
”He has,” Winifred answered repressively.
”Did he say anything about seats for the football game on Thanksgiving Day?”
”He did not.”
”Then I think I'd better sit right down and write to him, for he told me not to let him forget about it, and all the best seats will be taken if he does not attend to it soon.”
”Papa,” appealed Winifred to her father, who had come in and was taking off his coat in the hall, ”you won't let Jimmy write to Mr.
Flint, will you?”
”I _will_ write,” said the voice from the stairs, ”and I'll tell him how cross you are. I did once, and he only laughed.”
”Jimmy!”
”Yes, I did. It was that day when you would not let me go fis.h.i.+ng with him. I told him you were quite nice sometimes, but you could be horrid to people when they did things that didn't suit you, and he said that was just the way you struck him.”
”Papa!” cried Winifred, now thoroughly out of temper, ”will you forbid Jimmy to talk me over with strangers? It is really too much, the way that boy's tongue runs on.”
”You understand him, don't you?” the Professor asked mildly, looking over his gold-bowed spectacles.
”Yes, but other people don't.”
”Are they so much less clear-sighted than you?” With this gentle sarcasm her father slowly mounted the stairs, leaving Jimmy making faces of triumph through the open door.
It is often a curious experience in the contrasts of life for a girl to see herself from the family point of view, after catching the rose-colored reflections which the admiration of an outsider throws upon her character.
CHAPTER XVII
A LITTLE DINNER
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