So intent were they all, that
no one heard Grandpapa come in, and he sat there in a farther corner,
for a good quarter of an hour. At last Polly looked up and saw him.
"Oh, Grandpapa!" she cried, flying off from the group, and carrying
Adela's sketch in her hand. "Just see what a perfectly beautiful
picture of Phronsie! Adela Gray made it. She draws splendidly,
Grandpapa."
Old Mr. King took the little sketch and fairly beamed at it.
"It's very like,--it is excellent," he declared, caring nothing for its
merits as a drawing, but only seeing Phronsie as she sat with the big
Marken baby in her lap on the stubbly bank.
"Isn't it, Grandpapa?" cried Polly, overflowing with happiness; "and
she has given it to me, Grandpapa. Oh, isn't she good!"
"She is, indeed," assented old Mr. King, just as well pleased as Polly.
"A very good girl, indeed. Come here, Adela."
Adela, whose sharp ears had caught most of this dialogue at the other
end of the room,--although Jasper was keeping a steady fire of talk to
drown it if possible,--was looking in dismay at him.
"O dear me, I wish they'd stop," she breathed in distress.
"I thought you said you had no ear," said Jasper, laughing at her face.
"I can't tell music notes," she said, "but I can hear things."
"Yes, I should think you could," he said. And then came old Mr. King's
"Come here, Adela," so she had to go across the room, shaking every
step of the way, and stand in front of him.
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