Tea at the Vicarage.
“I was more or less of a newcomer in our village when I one day received a pressing invitation to tea at the Vicarage. When I arrived I found my hostess, a charming white-haired and white-shawled old lady, in her usual arm-chair by the drawing-room fire, and, seeing the chair on the other side of the hearth empty, I dropped into it with a delicious feeling of comfort after my walk through the chill and gloom of a foggy evening. I had not been many minutes installed when tea was brought in, and the hot cakes which my soul loved were deposited on the little brass stand inside the fender at my feet.
“Following fast on the arrival of the tea came the two daughters of the house, who had been busy in various parts of the parish, and were eager to compare notes and exchange the gossip they had gleaned between the gulps of hot tea with which they refreshed the inner woman.
“Meantime, I confess to wondering why I had been honoured with an invitation which was almost as pressing as a three-line whip. My curiosity was quickened by the fact that no sooner had we finished our meal than the tea-table was carried off to a distant part of the room, and a smile and look of enquiry went round, followed by a nod on the part of my hostess, the signal for one of the daughters to run away for a minute or two from the room. There was just that little silence which precedes an ‘event,’ and then she returned to be greeted by ‘Well?’ ‘All right,’ she replied, and silence fell on us again, to be broken almost immediately by a tap at the door, a tap that would never have been heard had it not been for our stillness of expectation. The elder and more impetuous of the daughters made a rush from her chair but was called back, and then in a moment I knew why I had been asked. From behind the high screen just inside the door there peeped a baby face! And such a baby face! Roguishness, bashfulness, mirth, and indecision were mingled in the little dimpling face and twinkling blue eyes.
The Entry of Baby.
“There was a shake of golden curls—no, not quite curls, and yet nothing else expresses the tangle of light that formed a background to that beauty of two summers—and then the vision disappeared. Shyness had won a momentary victory, but was routed on a friendly hand being held out round the screen to encourage the merry mischief that was never far to seek in her to assert itself.
“A little shriek of pleasure, and she had run into the middle of the room towards granny’s chair, but stopped short just where the circle of light from a reading lamp fell upon her. I shall not soon forget the picture. I had never seen her before, and, coming upon me in this unexpected way with her brightness and her beauty and her marvellous expression, she made an impression out of all proportion to her years.
“It was, I fear, the sight of me that caused her to stop so suddenly in her run to the loving arms that were stretched out for her.
“Neither she nor I had been prepared for the sight of the other, and a strange and bearded man may well alarm a little lady of two.
A Baby Actress.