Miss Tripp was at home, the maid informed him, and showed him at once into the drawing-room when Miss Tripp herself, charmingly gowned in old rose, presently came in to greet him.
Mr. Hickey caught himself gazing at the subdued tints of her toilet with vague disapproval. It was not, he told himself, a stunning colour such as was all the rage in Paris, New York and Boston. He felt exceedingly complacent as he thought of the plumes awaiting her acceptance.
"I wonder," Miss Tripp was saying brightly, "if you wouldn't like to see my little kindergarten? To tell you the truth, Mr. Hickey, I shouldn't venture to leave them to themselves, even to talk with you."
She led the way to the library where they were greeted by a chorus of joyous shouts.
"You see," exclaimed Miss Tripp, "I am entertaining all five of the children this afternoon. Elizabeth—Mrs. Brewster—wished to do some shopping, so I offered to keep an interested eye on her three wee lambkins."
"We're playin' birdies, Mr. Hickey," said Doris, taking up the thread of explanation, "Buddy and Baby Stanford are my little birdies; an' I'm the mother bird, an' Carroll an' Robbie are angleworms jus' crawlin' round on the ground. See me hop! Now I'm lookin' for a breakfast for my little birds!"
The two infants in a nest of sofa-pillows set up a loud chirping, while the angleworms writhed realistically on the hearth-rug.
"Now I'm goin' to catch one!" and Doris pounced upon Robbie Stanford. "Course I can't really put him down my birdies' throats," she explained kindly, "I just p'tend; like this."
"Aw—this isn't any fun," protested her victim, as she haled him sturdily across the floor. "You're pullin' my hair, anyway; leg-go, Doris; I ain't no really worm."