So the first and so the second and third years passed in safety.
III
“Please, I want to go, too, Jim.”
Jim swung round and caught the child up in his arms.
“Say, how dare you call your father Jim—eh, tell me that?”
“It’s what mummy calls you—it’s pretty.”
“I don’t call her ‘mummy’ because you do, and you mustn’t call me Jim because she does—do you hear?”
The whimsical face lowered a little, then the rare and beautiful dark blue eyes raised slowly, shaded by the long lashes, and the voice said, demurely, “Yes—Jim.”
“Nancy—Nancy,” said a voice from the corner in reproof, mingled with suppressed laughter. “Nancy, you mustn’t be saucy. You must say ‘father’ to—”
“Yes, mummy. I’ll say father to—Jim.”