"What in Zeelup," corrected the Teacup gently, counting her stitches.
"Milder than swearing, my dear, more becoming, and quite as
effective."

Sara wanted to tell her she wasn't swearing, but just at that moment
the wife of the Snimmy remarked, with some disgust in her voice,

"Well, if you'd of asked me sooner, I could of told you. I have them
in the sugar-bowl, of course. Do you suppose I'd be without, and him
subject to such fits?"

And so saying, she replaced the doorknob, which was now neatly hemmed,
on the front door of the prose-bush, and came down the steps to Sara,
carrying three large onions. She was not a bad-looking person, though
an amnicolist.

She then proceeded to slice the onions very deftly with a tuning-fork,
after which she rubbed the ice-cream of the pavement with the slices,
making a circle all around the Teacup, and another all around Sara,
somewhat like the ring they used to burn about a fire in the grass, to
keep it from spreading. All this time she was talking to them
grumblingly, though she never once looked up.

"I should think anybody'd know better than to bring dimples around
where he is," she said, "and I have my opinion of such. A poor,
hardworking man like him, that tries to act moral. I should think--"

She kept on saying things like this, that made Sara feel very
uncomfortable. But at last she finished her work, and looking