"I didn't mean to be horrid," she said plaintively. "Please overlook it, Mr. Smart. If you are very, very quiet I think you may see her now. She is asleep."
"I may frighten her if she awakes," I said in haste, remembering my antipathy to babies.
Nevertheless I was led through a couple of bare, unfurnished rooms into a sunny, perfectly adorable nursery. A nursemaid,—English, at a glance,—arose from her seat in the window and held a cautious finger to her lips. In the middle of a bed that would have accommodated an entire family, was the sleeping Rosemary—a tiny, rosy-cheeked, yellow haired atom bounded on four sides by yards of mattress.
I stood over her timorously and stared. The Countess put one knee upon the mattress and, leaning far over, kissed a little paw. I blinked, like a confounded booby.
Then we stole out of the room.
"Isn't she adorable?" asked the Countess when we were at a safe distance.
"They all are," I said grudgingly, "when they're asleep."
"You are horrid!"
"By the way," I said sternly, "how does that bedstead happen to be a yard or so lower than any other bed in this entire castle? All the rest of them are so high one has to get into them from a chair."
"Oh," she said complacently, "it was too high for Blake to manage conveniently, so I had Rudolph saw the legs off short."