'Mother, where _did_ you put the washing-up rag?' came the voice of
Jinny in plaintive accents from the tiny kitchen that lay beyond the
adjoining bedroom. 'I can't find it anywhere,' she added, poking her
head round the door suddenly.
'Pet lamb,' was Mother's answer, still bending over her knitting-she
was prodigal of terms like this and applied them indiscriminately, for
Jane Anne resembled the animal in question even less than did her
father--'I saw it last on the geranium shelf--you know, where the
fuchsias and the-' She hesitated, she was not sure herself. 'I'll get
it, my duckie, for you,' she added, and began to rise. She was a
voluminous, very stately woman. The operation took time.
'Let me,' said Daddy, drawing his mind with difficulty from the peat,
and rising too. They rose together.
'It's all right, I've got it,' cried the child, who had disappeared
again. 'It was in the sink. That's Jimbo; he washed up yesterday.'
'Pas vrai!' piped a little voice beside the open window, overhearing
his name, 'because I only dried. It was Monkey who washed up.' They
talked French and English all mixed up together.
But Monkey was too busy looking at the Alps through an old pair of
opera-glasses, relic of her father's London days that served for
telescope, to think reply worth while.
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