Chapter 54 - Page 2

circumstance made her laugh):
'Now, darling Pa, give me your hands that I may fold them
together, and do you say after me:--My little Bella.'

'My little Bella,' repeated Pa.

'I am very fond of you.'

'I am very fond of you, my darling,' said Pa.

'You mustn't say anything not dictated to you, sir. You daren't do
it in your responses at Church, and you mustn't do it in your
responses out of Church.'

'I withdraw the darling,' said Pa.

'That's a pious boy! Now again:--You were always--'

'You were always,' repeated Pa.

'A vexatious--'

'No you weren't,' said Pa.

'A vexatious (do you hear, sir?), a vexatious, capricious, thankless,
troublesome, Animal; but I hope you'll do better in the time to
come, and I bless you and forgive you!' Here, she quite forgot that
it was Pa's turn to make the responses, and clung to his neck.
'Dear Pa, if you knew how much I think this morning of what you
told me once, about the first time of our seeing old Mr Harmon,
when I stamped and screamed and beat you with my detestable
little bonnet! I feel as if I had been stamping and screaming and
beating you with my hateful little bonnet, ever since I was born,
darling!'

'Nonsense, my love. And as to your bonnets, they have always
been nice bonnets, for they have always become you--or you have
become them; perhaps it was that--at every age.'

'Did I hurt you much, poor little Pa?' asked Bella, laughing
(notwithstanding her repentance), with fantastic pleasure in the
picture, 'when I beat you with my bonnet?'

'No, my child. Wouldn't have hurt a fly!'

'Ay, but I am afraid I shouldn't have beat you at all, unless I had
meant to hurt you,' said Bella. 'Did I pinch your legs, Pa?'

'Not much, my dear; but I think it's almost time I--'

'Oh, yes!' cried Bella. 'If I go on chattering, you'll be taken alive.
Fly, Pa, fly!'

So, they went softly up the kitchen stairs on tiptoe, and Bella with
her light hand softly removed the fastenings of the house door, and
Pa, having received a parting hug, made off. When he had gone a
little way, he looked back. Upon which, Bella set another of those
finger seals upon the air, and thrust out her little foot expressive of
the mark. Pa, in appropriate action, expressed fidelity to the mark,
and made off as fast as he could go.

Bella walked thoughtfully in the garden for an hour and more, and
then, returning to the bedroom where Lavvy the Irrepressible still
slumbered, put on a little bonnet of quiet, but on the whole of sly
appearance, which she had yesterday made. 'I am going for a
walk, Lavvy,' she said, as she stooped down and kissed her. The
Irrepressible, with a bounce in the bed,