"We must try to find that out." And Sally sets herself to the task.
But it's none so easy. Some mystery shrouds the approach to this
passage in dolly's future life. It is connected with "kymin up," and
"tandin' on a tep," and when it began it went wizzy, wizzy, wizz,
and e-e-e-e, and never stopped. But Gwendolen had not been alarmed
whatever it was, because her "puppar" was there. But it was exhausting
to the intellect to tell of, for the description ended with a musical,
if vacuous, laugh, and a plunge into Sally's bosom, where the narrator
remained chuckling, but quite welcome.

"So Gwenny wasn't pitened! What a courageous little poppet! I wonder
what on earth it was, Sally."

Thus Tishy, at a loss. But Sally is sharper, for in a moment the
solution dawns upon her.

"What a couple of fools we are, Tishy dear! It wasn't _socks_--it was
_shocks_. It was the galvanic battery at the end of the pier. A penny
a time, and you mustn't have it on full up, or you howl. Why on earth
didn't we think of that before?"

But Nurse Jane comes in on the top of the laughter that follows,
which Miss Gwendolen is joining in, rather claiming it as a triumph
for her own dramatic power. She demurs to removal, but goes in the end
on condition that all present shall come and see dolly galvanised at
an early date. Jane agrees to replace dolly's vitals and sew her up
to qualify her for this experience. And so they depart.

"What a dear little mite!" says Mrs. Julius; and then they let the
mite lapse, and go back to the previous question.

"No, Sally dear, mamma will be mamma to the end of the time. But
I didn't tell you all papa said, did I?"

"How on earth can _I_ tell, Tishy dear? You had got to 'any dutiful
daughter would,' etcetera. Cut along! Comes of being in love, I
suppose." This last is a reflection on the low state of Tishy's
reasoning powers.

"Well, just after that, when I was going to kiss him and go, papa
stopped me, and said he had something to say, only he mustn't be too
long because he had to finish a paper on, I think, 'Some Technical
Terms in use in Cnidos in the Sixth Century, B.C.' Or was it...?"

"That was it. That one'll do beautifully. Go ahead!"

"Well--of course it doesn't matter. It was like papa, anyhow.... Oh,
yes--what he said then! It was about Aunt Priscilla's thousand pounds.
He wanted to repeat that the interest would be paid to me half-yearly
if by chance I married Julius or any other man withou