best so--triumphant, tired, laden with parcels, feeling rich in spirit.
He heard her quick, light step in the entry and looked up from his
drawing.
"Oh!" she sighed, smiling at him from the doorway.
"My word, you ARE loaded!" he exclaimed, putting down his brush.
"I am!" she gasped. "That brazen Annie said she'd meet me. SUCH a
weight!"
She dropped her string bag and her packages on the table.
"Is the bread done?" she asked, going to the oven.
"The last one is soaking," he replied. "You needn't look, I've not
forgotten it."
"Oh, that pot man!" she said, closing the oven door. "You know what a
wretch I've said he was? Well, I don't think he's quite so bad."
"Don't you?"
The boy was attentive to her. She took off her little black bonnet.
"No. I think he can't make any money--well, it's everybody's cry alike
nowadays--and it makes him disagreeable."
"It would ME," said Paul.
"Well, one can't wonder at it. And he let me have--how much do you think
he let me have THIS for?"
She took the dish out of its rag of newspaper, and stood looking on it
with joy.
"Show me!" said Paul.
The two stood together gloating over the dish.
"I LOVE cornflowers on things," said Paul.
"Yes, and I thought of the teapot you bought me--"
"One and three," said Paul.
"Fivepence!"
"It's not enough, mother."
"No. Do you know, I fairly sneaked off with it. But I'd been
extravagant, I couldn't afford any more. And he needn't have let me have
it if he hadn't wanted to."
"No, he needn't, need he," said Paul, and the two comforted each other
from the fear of having robbed the pot man.
"We c'n have stewed fruit in it," said Paul.
"Or custard, or a jelly," said his mother.
"Or radishes and lettuce," said he.
"Don't forget that bread," she said, her voice bright with glee.
Paul looked in the oven; tapped the loaf on the base.
"It's done," he said, giving it to her.
She tapped it also.
"Yes," she replied, going to unpack her bag. "Oh, and I'm a wicked,
extravagant woman. I know I s'll come to want."
He hopped to her side eagerly, to see her latest extravagance. She
unfolded another lump of newspaper and disclosed some roots of pansies
and of crimson daisies.
"Four penn'orth!" she moaned.
"How CHEAP!" he cried.
"Yes, but I couldn't afford it THIS week of all weeks."
"But lovely!" he cried.
"Aren't they!" she exclaimed, giving way to pure joy. "Paul, look at
this yellow one, isn't it--and a face just like an old man!"
"Just!" cried Paul, stooping to sniff. "And smells that nice! But he's a
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