“Well, nurse,” said he, cheerfully, “here we are back again, both of us.”
“That we be, sir.” And she showed her white teeth in a broad smile. “La, sir, you be a sight for sore eyes. How well you do look, to be sure!”
“Thank you, Mary. I never was better in my life. You look pretty well too; only a little pale; paler than Lady Bassett does.”
“I give my color to the child,” said Mary, simply.
She did not know she had said anything poetic; but Sir Charles was so touched and pleased with her answer that he gave her a five-pound note on the spot; and he said, “We'll bring your color back if beef and beer and kindness can do it.”
“I ain't afeard o' that, sir; and I'll arn it. 'Tis a lovely boy, sir, and your very image.”
Inspection followed; and something or other offended young master; he began to cackle. But this nurse did not take him away, as Mrs. Millar had. She just sat down with him and nursed him openly, with rustic composure and simplicity.
Sir Charles leaned his arm on the mantel-piece, and eyed the pair; for all this was a new world of feeling to him. His paid servant seemed to him to be playing the mother to his child. Somehow it gave him a strange twinge, a sort of vicarious jealousy: he felt for his Bella. But I think his own paternal pride, in all its freshness, was hurt a little too.
At last he shrugged his shoulders, and was going out of the room, with a hint to Mary that she must wrap herself up, for it would be an open carriage—
“Your own carriage, sir, and horses?”