Mary dropped one knee upon the mat; caught her arms about the children. She pressed a cool face against each side her wet and burning countenance, gave kisses, and upon the added stress of this new emotion choked: “Good-bye, little ducklings!”
“Oh, darling, darling Miss Humf'ay, we will be good if you'll stay!” They felt this was the desperate threat that so often followed their misdemeanours put into action.
She held them, hugging them. “It isn't that. You have been good.”
“Then you said you would stay for ever and ever if we were good.”
“Not ever and ever; I said—I said perhaps a fairy prince would come to take me. Didn't I?”
This was the romance that forbade tears. But David had doubts. He regarded the hansom at the door: “That's a cab, not a carriage. Fairy princes don't come in cabs.”
“The prince is waiting. Kiss me, darling Davie. Angie, dear, dear Angle, kiss me.”
She rose. Mrs. Chater had come from the stairs, now laid hands upon the small people and dragged them back from the pretty figure about which they clung.
They screamed, “Let me go!”
David roared; dropped prone upon the mat to kick and howl: “Take away your hand, mother!”