Part 22 (2/2)

Now, if you don't go on with your breakfast, I shall depart. Let me sit by the fire and warm my feet.”

”You have breakfasted?”

”Of course. How patriarchal you look, John, sitting in state to be adored!”

Thereupon, turning away from the fire, she began to smile upon the little Anastasia, and without any more direct invitation, the small coquette allowed herself to be decoyed from her father to sit on the visitor's knee. Emily had already thrown off her fur wraps, and the child, making herself very much at home in her arms, began presently to look at her brooch and other ornaments, the touch of her small fingers appearing to give pleasure to Emily, who took up one of the fat little pink hands, and kissed it fondly.

”What is that lady's name, Nancy?” said John.

”Mrs. Nemily,” answered the child.

”You have still a little nursery English left about you, John,” said Emily. ”How sweet it is! My boy has that yet to come; he can hardly say half-a-dozen words.”

Then Gladys entering the room with a cup and saucer, she rose and came to the table.

”That milk looks so nice--give me some of it. How pleasant it is to feel cold and hungry, as one does in England! No, John, not ham; I will have some bread and marmalade. Do the children always wait on you, John, at breakfast?”

There was something peculiarly sweet and penetrative in the voices of Brandon and his sister; but this second quality sometimes appeared to give more significance to their words than they had intended.

”Always. Does it appear an odd arrangement in your eyes?”

”Father,” said Barbara, ”here is your paper. I have cut the leaves.”

”Thank you, my dear; put it down. You should, consider, Emily, my great age and exaltation in the eyes of these youngsters. Don't you perceive that I am a middle-aged man, madam?”

”Middle-aged, indeed! You are not thirty-six till the end of September, you know--the 28th of September. And oh, John, you cannot think how young you look! just as if you had stolen all these children, and they were not really yours. You have so many of them, too, while I have only one, and he such a little one--he is only two years old.”

While she spoke a bell began to ring, and the two elder children, wis.h.i.+ng her good-bye, left the room.

”Do you think those girls are growing like their mother?” asked John.

”I think they are a little. Perhaps that pretty way they have of taking up their eye-gla.s.ses when they come forward to look at anything, makes them seem more like than they are.”

John scarcely ever mentioned his wife, but before Emily most people spoke without much reserve.

”Only one of the whole tribe is like her in mind and disposition,” he continued.

”And that's a good thing,” thought Emily, but she did not betray her thought.

While this talk went on the two younger children had got possession, of Mrs. Nemily's watch (which hung from her neck by a long Trichinopoly chain), and were listening to a chime that it played. Emily took the boy on her knee, and it did not appear that he considered himself too big to be nursed, but began to examine the watch, putting it to his ear, while he composedly rested his head on her shoulder.

”Poor little folk,” thought John, ”how naturally they take to the caresses of a young mother!”

Another bell then rang.

”What order is kept in your house!” said Emily, as both the children departed, one with a kiss on her dimpled cheek and the other on his little scratched fist, which already told of much climbing.

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