The girl at the table left off biting her pen and made a return to
our recognition, which was half bashful and half sulky.

"--I shall then have finished for the present," proceeded Mrs.
Jellyby with a sweet smile, "though my work is never done. Where
are you, Caddy?"

"'Presents her compliments to Mr. Swallow, and begs--'" said Caddy.

"'And begs,'" said Mrs. Jellyby, dictating, "'to inform him, in
reference to his letter of inquiry on the African project--' No,
Peepy! Not on my account!"

Peepy (so self-named) was the unfortunate child who had fallen
downstairs, who now interrupted the correspondence by presenting
himself, with a strip of plaster on his forehead, to exhibit his
wounded knees, in which Ada and I did not know which to pity most--
the bruises or the dirt. Mrs. Jellyby merely added, with the
serene composure with which she said everything, "Go along, you
naughty Peepy!" and fixed her fine eyes on Africa again.

However, as she at once proceeded with her dictation, and as I
interrupted nothing by doing it, I ventured quietly to stop poor
Peepy as he was going out and to take him up to nurse. He looked
very much astonished at it and at Ada's kissing him, but soon fell
fast asleep in my arms, sobbing at longer and longer intervals,
until he was quiet. I was so occupied with Peepy that I lost the
letter in detail, though I derived such a general impression from
it of the momentous importance of Africa, and the utter
insignificance of all other places and things, that I felt quite