As she hurried off to do it , the flutter of her spirits , and the agitation of her manner , were so strange , that the Carrier stood looking after her , quite confounded . `` Did its mothers make it up a Beds , then ! '' cried Miss Slowboy to the Baby ; `` and did its hair grow brown and curly when its caps was lifted off , and frighten it , a precious Pets , a sitting by the fires ! '' With that unaccountable attraction of the mind to trifles , which is often incidental to a state of doubt and confusion , the Carrier , as he walked slowly to and fro , found himself mentally repeating even these absurd words , many times . So many times , that he got them by heart , and was still conning them over and over , like a lesson , when Tilly , after administering as much friction to the little bald head with her hand as she thought wholesome -LRB- according to the practice of nurses -RRB- , had once more tied the Baby 's cap on . `` And frighten it , a precious Pets , a sitting by the fires . What frightened Dot , I wonder ? '' mused the Carrier , pacing to and fro . He scouted , from his heart , the insinuations of the toy merchant , and yet they filled him with a vague , indefinite uneasiness . For Tackleton was quick and sly ; and he had that painful sense , himself , of being a man of slow perception , that a broken hint was always worrying to him . He certainly had no intention in his mind of linking anything that Tackleton had said with the unusual conduct of his wife , but the two subjects of reflection came into his mind together , and he could not keep them asunder . The bed was soon made ready ; and the visitor , declining all refreshment but a cup of tea , retired . Then , Dot -- quite well again , she said , quite well again -- arranged the great chair in the chimney-corner for her husband ; filled his pipe and gave it him ; and took her usual little stool beside him on the hearth . She always would sit on that little stool . I think she must have had a kind of notion that it was a coaxing , wheedling little stool . She was , out and out , the very best filler of a pipe , I should say , in the four quarters of the globe . To see her put that chubby little finger in the bowl , and then blow down the pipe to clear the tube , and , when she had done so , affect to think that there was really something in the tube , and blow a dozen times , and hold it to her eye like a telescope , with a most provoking twist in her capital little face , as she looked down it , was quite a brilliant thing . As to the tobacco , she was perfect mistress of the subject ; and her lighting of the pipe , with a wisp of paper , when the Carrier had it in his mouth -- going so very near his nose , and yet not scorching it -- was Art , high Art . And the Cricket and the Kettle , turning up again , acknowledged it ! The bright fire , blazing up again , acknowledged it !
The little Mower on the clock , XXXXX his unheeded work , acknowledged it !
With as beside by for in like of on to