Very stiffly the Little Girl pursed her lips. "It's plenty generous enough—when it's all done!" she said severely. "And I'll thank you,—Miss Malgregor,—not to interrupt me again!" With excessive deliberateness she went back to the first line of her poem and began all over again,
Now I sit me down to nap,
All curled up in a Nursie's lap,
If she should die before I wake,
Give her—give her ten cents—for Jesus' sake!
"Why that's a—a cunning little prayer," yawned the White Linen Nurse. Most certainly of course she would have smiled if the yawn hadn't caught her first. But now in the middle of the yawn it was a great deal easier to repeat the "very cunning" than to force her lips into any new expression. "Very cunning—very cunning," she kept crooning conscientiously.
Modestly like some other successful authors the Little Girl flapped her eyelids languidly open and shut for three or four times before she acknowledged the compliment. "Oh, cunning as any of 'em," she admitted off-handishly. Only once again did she open either mouth or eyes, and this time it was merely one eye and half a mouth. "Do my fat iron braces—hurt you?" she mumbled drowsily.
"Yes, a little," conceded the White Linen Nurse.
"Ha! They hurt me—all the time!" gibed the Little Girl.
Five minutes later, the child who didn't particularly care about being held, and the girl who didn't particularly care about holding her, were fast asleep in each other's arms,—a naughty, nagging, restive little hornet all hushed up and a-dream in the heart of a pink wild-rose!
Stalking out of the house in his own due time the Senior Surgeon reared back aghast at the sight.
"Well—I'll be hanged!" he muttered. "Most everlastingly hanged! Wonder what they think this is? A somnolent kindergarten show? Talk about fiddling while Rome burns!"
Awkwardly, on the top step, he struggled alone into his cumbersome coat. Every tingling nerve in his body, every shuddering sensibility, was racked to its utmost capacity over the distressing scenes he had left behind him in the big house. Back in that luxuriant sickroom, Youth Incarnate lay stripped, root, branch, leaf, bud, blossom, fruit, of All its manhood's promise. Back in that erudite library, Culture Personified, robbed of all its fine philosophy, sat babbling illiterate street-curses into its quivering hands. Back in that exquisite pink and gold boudoir, Blonded Fashion, ravished for once of all its artistry, ran stumbling round and round in interminable circles like a disheveled hag. In shrill crescendos and discordant basses, with heartpiercing jaggedness, with blood-curdling raspishness, each one, boy, father, mother, meddlesome relative, competent or incompetent assistant, indiscriminate servant, filing his separate sorrow into the Senior Surgeon's tortured ears!