"A pram isn't enough. You'll want coverings for her—in this wind."
"Well, we'll buy the necessary number of eider-downs and blankets, then," said Edward Henry. "Driver—"
A tremendous business! For in addition to making the purchases he had to feed his flock in an A.B.C. shop, where among the unoccupied waitresses Maisie and her talkative, winking doll enjoyed a triumph. Still there was plenty of time.
At a quarter past twelve he was displaying the varied landscape beauties of the park to his family. Ralph insisted on going to the bridge over the lake, and Robert silently backed him. And therefore the entire party went. But Maisie was afraid of the water and cried. [252] Now the worst thing about Maisie was that when once she had begun to cry it was very difficult to stop her. Even the most remarkable dolls were powerless to appease her distress.
"Give me the confounded pram, nurse," said Edward Henry. "I'll cure her."
But he did not cure her. However, he had to stick grimly to the perambulator. Nellie tripped primly in black silk on one side of it. Nurse had the wayward Ralph by the hand. And Robert, taciturn, stalked alone, adding up London and making a very small total of it.
Suddenly Edward Henry halted the perambulator, and, stepping away from it, raised his hat. An excessively elegant young woman leading a Pekinese by a silver chain stopped as if smitten by a magic dart and held spellbound.
"How do you do, Miss April?" said Edward Henry, loudly. "I was hoping to meet you. This is my wife. Nellie—this is Miss April." Nellie bowed stiffly in her black silk. (Naught of the fresh maiden about her now!) And it has to be said that Elsie April in all her young and radiant splendour and woman-of-the-worldliness was equally stiff. "And there are my two boys. And this is my little girl—in the pram."
Maisie screamed, and pushed an expensive doll out of the perambulator. Edward Henry saved it by its boot as it fell.
"And this is her doll. And this is nurse," he finished. "Fine breezy morning, isn't it?"