The little-mother-to-her-sisters-and-brothers, gentle, smooth-haired and fond of her needle, to be found in every well-regulated family, Merle, on consideration, also presented as a free gift to Peter. Her own unacknowledged favourite was the funny little beggar with the puck-like ears, three-cornered nostrils set to catch the rain, and scientific mind; which latter prompted him invariably to take articles to pieces for the sake of seeing how they worked. And they never worked again. There were many, many costly rarities in the house, Merle remembered happily, that literally asked for his attentions.
Or did she after all more tenderly incline to the delicate child with clustering pale-gold hair? who nervously refused to sleep without a night-light; who believed in fairies, and cherished all sorts of quaint fanciful notions about the little angels—Merle pulled herself up with a start, realizing that here she had in wanton enjoyment created a veritable chee-ild! Unable to slaughter in cold blood anything so lately born, she compromised by ... giving it to Peter. For anyhow (in guilty argument) Peter’s hair was of that peculiar pale-gold tint, and what more natural than that her offspring should inherit it?
Tumultuously alive now, all these ordinary healthy grubby youngsters; making walls within and sky without, resound with their whoops and coo-ees. A turbulent out-of-hand crew—Merle is rather afraid she is lacking in Proper Authority; in the balancing whereof, she endows the (shadowy) father with a “firm hand over the children,” in addition to his Irish birth and other excellent qualities.
A few stray naughtinesses yet to be collected from chimney-corner and rafter and cellar; such as leaving all doors open,—except, in swift amendment, when Dick rather chooses to bang them. Somebody, probably the gardener, lodges a complaint that “they chairs be rotted through again, left h’out all night in the damp.” And Nurse says it isn’t her fault that the young ladies and gentlemen won’t eat vegetables, since they will persist in stuffing chocolate just before their dinner; and Merle has much ado not to laugh, knowing, via some subtle instinct, that every secret opportunity is embraced to thrust tapioca, crusts, and spinach into the crevice between walls and cupboard; accumulated results only to be discovered at Spring-cleaning.
... Boy-girl dashes in to demand material for “dressing-up”; already she has helped herself pretty liberally; the polite request is an afterthought. The nurseries overflow with messy pets—nor does Puck ever remember to feed his guinea-pig. Nobody-loves-me has run away, for the third time in a fortnight, because the others don’t want her to play with them. His sailor-suit very green and wet and messy from an afternoon’s fishing in the pond, Copper-curls (his brothers call him Carrots) stumbles into the boudoir, trailing behind him tackle and weed and worm on the pale grey carpet. Drowsily he cuddles his firm little body against Merle’s eau-de-nil; slips a very hot hand between her cool fingers; droops his mouth to the semblance of a celestial choir-boy’s—so that she knows he has been very, very wicked, and requires forgiveness and absolution.
And now Stuart is standing before her, eyes full of trouble ... and the children tumble in quick confusion back to the Land of Corners....
Bewildered, Merle rubbed her eyes: “I didn’t hear you come in”; the door had been open, and the thick velvet pile a muffler to approaching footsteps.
“Merle, am I going to be hurled from the battlements, for failing to observe the divinity of play?”
She made no reply, not quite sure whether his mood be not of mockery. And suddenly, with a quick and—for him—rather clumsy movement, he dropped onto his knees beside her chair, buried his head deep in her lap; so that it almost seemed as if Dick ... Merle let her fingers stray, half-fearfully, among the rebellion of rough brown hair. For in the blur of twilight and dreams and pattering rain, she could not as yet entirely separate her phantom visitants from the real ones.
“Why, your coat is wet.” She bent forward to light the gas-fire in the grate. And with a gulp and a leap, the room was warm with a multitude of tiny blue tongues, licking and panting through their skull-like rings.