‘Are you ready?’ Larrie said in rather a thick voice.
But Dot looked at him indignantly. ‘Wait till he is awake and knows what he is doing,’ she said.
He was laughing up at them, holding up his arms. There was some soft fur at his mother’s neck that he was convinced would be good to eat, he had a desire also to pull the crisp curls on his father’s head.
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]‘Goo—goo—goo,’ he said, with an impatient kick and an adorable smile.
How white Dot was! How Larrie’s hand trembled as he picked up the tray!
‘He is awake now,’ he said in a low voice.
‘Let them be quite even,’ Dot returned, with an agitated look, ‘of course he will take the nearest one.’
Larrie arranged them with mathematical precision, then put the tray near the little baby hands. For one wild second, Dot looked away, she could not have watched, then a low, mirthless laugh from Larrie recalled her eyes.
The child had taken the two without a moment’s hesitation, and stuffed them instantly into his little open hungry mouth.
The diversion occupied some little time for both knew that paper was bad for infantile digestion, but the touch of humour about it did not strike either, or divert them from the tragedy they were bent upon.