“So I must go,” lamented Phemie; “but, Dolly, if you would n't mind, I should so like to see the baby. I have never seen him since the day we called with mamma,—and I am so fond of babies, and he was so pretty.”
Dolly laughed, in spite of herself. She remembered the visit so well, and Lady Augusta's loftily resigned air of discovering, in the passively degenerate new arrival, the culminating point of the family depravity.
“It is much to be regretted,” she had said, disapprovingly; “but it is exactly what I foresaw from the first, and you will have to make the best of it.”
And then, on Dolly's modestly suggesting that they intended to do so, and were not altogether borne down to the earth by the heavy nature of their calamity, she had openly shuddered.
But Phemie had quite clung to the small bundle of lawn and flannel, and though she had never seen Tod since, she had by no means forgotten him.
“He will be quite a big boy when I come back,” she added. “And I should so like to see him once again while he is a baby.”
“Oh, you shall see him,” said Dolly. “Tod is the one individual in this house who always feels himself prepared to receive visitors. He is n't fastidious about his personal appearance. If you will come into the next room, I dare say we shall find him.”
And they did find him. Being desirous of employing, to the greatest advantage, the time spent in his retirement within the bosom of his family, he was concentrating his energies upon the mastication of the toe of his slipper, upon which task he was bestowing the strictest and most undivided attention, as he sat in the centre of the hearth-rug.
“He has got another tooth, Aunt Dolly,” announced 'Toinette, triumphantly, as soon as the greetings were over. “Show Aunt Dolly his tooth.” And, being laid upon his back on the maternal knee, in the most uncomfortable and objectionable of positions, the tooth was exhibited, as a matter calling forth public rejoicings.
Phemie knelt on the carpet before him, the humblest of his devotees.