“Dangerous, godmother? My child is always dangerous, more or less. He might”⁠—here the little creature glanced back over her shoulder at the sky⁠—“be setting the house on fire at this present moment. I don’t know who would have a child, for my part! It’s no use shaking him. I have shaken him till I have made myself giddy. ‘Why don’t you mind your Commandments and honour your parent, you naughty old boy?’ I said to him all the time. But he only whimpered and stared at me.”

“What shall be changed, after him?” asked Riah in a compassionately playful voice.

“Upon my word, godmother, I am afraid I must be selfish next, and get you to set me right in the back and the legs. It’s a little thing to you with your power, godmother, but it’s a great deal to poor weak aching me.”

There was no querulous complaining in the words, but they were not the less touching for that.

“And then?”