"But that puts the idea into their heads," was my answer.
Hannah regarded me with evident disapprobation.
"But supposing the baby cries?" she demanded.
"Then she must be left to stop," I answered, with outward firmness and inward quakings.
"But suppose she cries herself sick?" insisted Rosa.
"She won't. She'll just cry a little till she finds nobody comes, and then she'll go to sleep."
The two girls regarded me with looks that spoke disapproval in the largest of capitals. It is so seldom they are entirely united that it was disconcerting to have them thus make common cause against me, but I had to keep up for the sake of dignity if for nothing else. Thomasine was fed and arranged for the night; she was kissed and cuddled, and tucked into her crib. Then I got Hannah and Rosa, both protesting they didn't mind sitting up with the darling all night, out of the room, darkened the windows, and shut baby in alone for the first time in her whole life, a life still so pathetically little.
I closed the nursery door with an air of great calmness and determination, but outside I lingered like a complete coward. The girls were glowering darkly from the end of the hall, and we needed only candlelight to look like three bloodthirsty conspirators. For two or three minutes there was a soothing and deceptive silence, so that I turned to smile with an air of superior wisdom on the maids. Then without warning baby uplifted her voice and wailed.
There was something most disconcertingly explosive about the cry, as if Thomasine had been holding her breath until she were black in the face, and only let it escape one second short of actual suffocation. I jumped as if a mouse had sprung into my face, and the two girls swooped down upon me in a whirl of triumphant indignation.