"She's black, too; and the nurse is horrid. And what is the matter with my nose?"
"Eh?" said Jim Brown.
"Yes. Look at my nose. What's wrong with it?"
The Brown boy looked at it. Then he looked closer. Little by little an expression of horror came over his face. "Oh!" he exclaimed. "Oh my! Just think of it!"
"What? What is it?" cried Edith. "It was all right just now." And as the boy kept staring at her nose with growing amazement, she screamed: "Tell me what it is! Tell me, or I'll hit you!"
Then the Brown boy got up and danced round her in a frenzy of horror at what was the matter with her nose; so she took a small stone and threw it at him. Whereupon he went back to his strawberry-plants, and declined to speak to her any more.
When he saw her walking forlornly away with her hand to her nose, and her two plaits dangling despondently behind, he felt sorry, and called her back.
"I was only larking, Miss Edith. Your nose is all right." So she was comforted, and sat down on the grass to talk to him.
"Valeria speaks Italian to the baby, and they have come to stay always," she said. "The baby is going to have my room, and I am going to be upstairs near Florence. We are all going to dress in black, because of my brother Tom having died. And mamma has been crying about it for the last four days. And that baby is my niece."
"Your brother, Master Tom, was the favourite with them all, wasn't he?" said Jim.