“Oh, of course I shall mention that,” replied Minora.
“And pink toes,” I added. “There are always toes, and they are never anything but pink.”
“I have that somewhere,” said Minora, turning over her notes.
“But, after all, babies are not a German speciality,” said Irais, “and I don’t quite see why you should bring them into a book of German travels. Elizabeth’s babies have each got the fashionable number of arms and legs, and are exactly the same as English ones.”
“Oh, but they can’t be just the same, you know,” said Minora, looking worried. “It must make a difference living here in this place, and eating such odd things, and never having a doctor, and never being ill. Children who have never had measles and those things can’t be quite the same as other children; it must all be in their systems and can’t get out for some reason or other. And a child brought up on chicken and rice-pudding must be different to a child that eats Spickgans and liver sausages. And they are different; I can’t tell in what way, but they certainly are; and I think if I steadily describe them from the materials I have collected the last three days, I may perhaps hit on the points of difference.”
“Why bother about points of difference?” asked Irais. “I should write some little thing, bringing in the usual parts of the picture, such as knees and toes, and make it mildly pathetic.”
“But it is by no means an easy thing for me to do,” said Minora plaintively; “I have so little experience of children.”
“Then why write it at all?” asked that sensible person Elizabeth.
“I have as little experience as you,” said Irais, “because I have no children; but if you don’t yearn after startling originality, nothing is easier than to write bits about them. I believe I could do a dozen in an hour.”
She sat down at the writing-table, took up an old letter, and scribbled for about five minutes. “There,” she said, throwing it to Minora, “you may have it—pink toes and all complete.”