“Is he?” smiled Billy, faintly.
“Yes. One would think there were never any babies born before, to hear him talk. He thinks they're the most wonderful things in the world—and they are cunning little fellows, I'll admit. But Cyril thinks they know so much,” went on Kate, laughingly. “He's always bragging of something one or the other of them has done. Think of it—Cyril! Marie says it all started from the time last January when he discovered the nurses had been calling them Dot and Dimple.”
“Yes, I know,” smiled Billy again, faintly, lifting a thin, white, very un-Billy-like hand to her head.
Kate frowned, and regarded her sister-in-law thoughtfully.
“Mercy! how you look, Billy!” she exclaimed, with cheerful tactlessness. “They said you did, but, I declare, you look worse than I thought.”
Billy's pale face reddened perceptibly.
“Nonsense! It's just that I'm so—so tired,” she insisted. “I shall be all right soon. How did you leave the children?”
“Well, and happy—'specially little Kate, because mother was going away. Kate is mistress, you know, when I'm gone, and she takes herself very seriously.”
“Mistress! A little thing like her! Why, she can't be more than ten or eleven,” murmured Billy.
“She isn't. She was ten last month. But you'd think she was forty, the airs she gives herself, sometimes. Oh, of course there's Nora, and the cook, and Miss Winton, the governess, there to really manage things, and Mother Hartwell is just around the corner; but little Kate thinks she's managing, so she's happy.”