We sat by the fire until dusk—we three and the sleeping child. He had gone off in my arms, and I would not permit him to be moved or touched. As long as the light lasted I watched his sweet face, and the blessed dew of perspiration on his still open lips and where the matted curls stuck to his nobly-shaped brow; never had I seen such a splendid boy of his age—except my own. I made Phyllis put up her feet on a lounge opposite, and every now and then I met her wistful eyes looking at me as if she were a child herself again. Yet I saw a great change in her—the great change that motherhood makes in every woman—enhancing her charm in every way. Emily sat on the stool between us. Once or twice she attempted to go—and I wished she would—but Phyllis would not let her. However, though not one of us yet, she would be soon, and in our murmured talk together I instructed them both in some of the things of which, in spite of a doctor being the husband of one of them, they were alike ignorant.
"Remember," I said, "never to be without a four-ounce bottle of ipecacuanha wine, hermetically sealed when fresh, and kept where you can readily lay your hand upon it. And when you find your child breathing in that loud, hoarse way, or beginning that barking cough, give a teaspoonful at once—at once—and another every five minutes until relieved. Now don't forget that, either of you. You thought it only a bad cold, Phyllis dear, but I could have told you differently if you had sent for me. When he gets another attack——"
"Oh, do you think he will have another?" she gasped, springing up on her sofa with that unnecessary, uncontrollable agitation which I understood so well.
I told her I expected it, but that there was no need to be alarmed, since she now knew how to recognise and deal with the complaint, which, even if constitutional with him, he would grow out of in a few years. I suggested causes to be guarded against—stomach troubles, the notorious insalubrity of Melbourne streets, and so on—and reassured her as much as I could.
"Pray Heaven," she sighed, with tears in her eyes, "that I may never see him like this again! Oh, I can't bear to think of it!" She shuddered visibly. "He would have been dead now—now, at this very moment—and Ted would have come home to find we were childless—if it had not been for you, mother."
"I think it very likely," I said, looking at the darling as I gently swayed him to and fro on the low rocking-chair. "But he won't die now."
"And he wasn't christened!" she ejaculated.
"That didn't matter," Emily put in, with her inevitable blush. "You don't believe in that old fetish of baptismal regeneration, surely, Phyllis? You don't think the poor little soul would have been plunged into fire and brimstone because a man did not make incantations over it?"
I rebuked Emily. As I had before remarked to Tom, she had all sorts of maggots in her head. It was the B.A., the advanced woman, coming out in her, and I did not like to see it, my own family having been brought up so differently. I observed with relief, that Phyllis took no notice of her flippant questions. She looked at me—knowing that I should understand—and said she felt as if it would be a comfort to her somehow to have him baptized. I suggested that it would be nice to have it done in the cathedral as soon as he was well enough; and just after that he awoke, we gave him his medicine, and Emily went home.
When I had dressed the child for his cot and made him comfortable I took up my own cloak and bonnet. But Phyllis looked so aghast at the proceeding, and implored me with such evident sincerity not to leave her, and particularly not to leave the baby, that I consented to stay at any rate until Edmund returned—although, as I represented to her, her father would be thinking I had been run over in the street.