It was useless at the present moment to remind her son of oft-repeated prohibitions concerning the gold-fish tank. Elizabeth pondered the question of an appropriate penalty with knit brows, while she washed and dressed him in dry garments to the accompaniment of his doleful sobs.
"Now, Richard, you must stay in your crib till you can be a good boy and mind mother," was the somewhat vague sentence of the maternal court at the conclusion of the necessary rehabilitation, whereupon the infant howled anew as if under acute bodily torture.
As she turned to pick up the wet clothing a cheerful voice called her to the top of the stairs. "Shall I come up, dear? Your kitchen divinity admitted me and told me to walk right in."
"Oh,—Marian; I'll be right down. I've had to dress Dick over again, and everything's in confusion. Go in the sitting-room, please."
Elizabeth wanted time to collect herself before meeting the cool, amused eyes of Marian Stanford, whose ideas on the government of children were so wholly at variance with her own.
"When you are ready to be a good boy, Richard, you may call mother and I will come up and take you out of your crib," was her parting observation to the culprit.
"Oh, Elizabeth, dear; I'm afraid I interrupted a little maternal seance," was Mrs. Stanford's greeting. "No? Well, I'm glad if I haven't. It does vex me so when someone chances to call just as I am having it out with one of the infants."
"Richard got his sleeves wet," explained Richard's mother, with what the other mentally termed "a really funny air of dignity."
Mrs. Stanford's uplifted eyebrows and a flitting glance in the direction of the gold-fish tank expressed her complete understanding of the matter.
"I remember you told me your child was fond of fishing," she murmured. "So like his dear father."