"
"My word!" said Pip to himself, and he slipped down and flew across
to the house.
"UpON my word!" said Martha, meeting him in the hall five minutes
later, a cut-glass decanter under his arm, a wineglass held in his
teeth by the stem, a dish of cold chicken in his hand, and bread
and butter in a little stack beside the chicken. "Upon my word!
And what next, might I ask?"
"Oh, shut up, and hang your grandmother!" said Pip, brushing past
her, and going a circuitous voyage to the shed lest she should be
watching.
He knelt down beside his little sister and fed her with morsels of
chicken and sips of wine, and stroked her wild hair, and called
her old girl fifty times, and besought her to eat just a little more
and a little more.
And Judy, catching the look in the brown, wet eyes above her, ate all
he offered, though the first mouthful nearly choked her; she would
have eaten it had it been elephant's hide, seeing she loved this boy
better than anything else in the world, and he was in such distress.
She was the better for it, too, and sat up and talked quite naturally
after a little time.
"You shouldn't have done t you shouldn't really, you know, old girl,
and what the governor will say to you beats me.
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