"Yes." She was crossing the room by this time to the doctor, whom she
had quickly perceived, and was holding out her hand to him. "You must
know, doctor, that we are up to our eyes in blankets just now, and in
bundles of red flannel, and in soup and coals. Papa has been reading up
Christmas in the country in the olden time, and he finds that to be
correct you must deluge the neighborhood with those articles. They are
not at all what the people want, as far as I can make out. But that
doesn't matter. It pleases papa to demoralize the neighborhood; so we're
doing it. And mamma helps him. She dates from the prehistoric period
when a wife _really_ swore to obey her husband; so she does it through
thick and thin. Of course, she knows better all the time. She could
always set papa right if she chose. Whatever happens, papa must be
obeyed. So when he wants to run his dear old head into a noose, she
dutifully holds it open for him, when all the time she knows how
uncomfortable he'll be till he gets out."

"You're a saucy puss, Miss!" cried her father, trying to frown, but
betraying his delight in his daughter's merry tongue by the twinkle in
his eyes.

"And that's the right sort of woman for a wife," said the old doctor,
enthusiastically. "I must say I think it's a bad sign when young girls
think they can improve upon their own mothers."

"She doesn't mean half she says," said her father, indulgently.

"Oh, yes, she does," retorted Doreen. "And she wants to know, please,
what it is you have to say to Dudley."