Irma returned from the interview sobbing, though, as a matter of fact, she had learnt very little. But that little took hold of her imagination. She had promised secrecy—she knew not why. But what harm in talking of the little brother to those who had heard of him already?
“Aunt Harriet!” she would say. “Uncle Phil! Grandmamma! What do you suppose my little brother is doing now? Has he begun to play? Do Italian babies talk sooner than us, or would he be an English baby born abroad? Oh, I do long to see him, and be the first to teach him the Ten Commandments and the Catechism.”
The last remark always made Harriet look grave.
“Really,” exclaimed Mrs. Herriton, “Irma is getting too tiresome. She forgot poor Lilia soon enough.”
“A living brother is more to her than a dead mother,” said Philip dreamily. “She can knit him socks.”
“I stopped that. She is bringing him in everywhere. It is most vexatious. The other night she asked if she might include him in the people she mentions specially in her prayers.”
“What did you say?”
“Of course I allowed her,” she replied coldly. “She has a right to mention any one she chooses. But I was annoyed with her this morning, and I fear that I showed it.”
“And what happened this morning?”
“She asked if she could pray for her ‘new father’—for the Italian!”