“Pardon me, m’lady, but not of course.”
“But what do you mean, Unwin?”
“I hardly like to say it, m’lady, of relations, ’owever distant, of ours. Still, m’lady——”
“Don’t Chew it about, Unwin.”
“Then I out with it, m’lady. ’Ave they been baptized, m’lady, either of them? ’Ave they been baptized?”
§ 2
Before a fortnight was out Lady Charlotte had made two more visits to The Ingle-Nook, she had had an acrimonious dispute upon religious questions with Phœbe, and she was well on her way to the terrible realization that these two apparently imbecile ladies in the shapeless “arty” dresses were really socialists and secularists—of course, like all other socialists and secularists, “of the worst type.” It was impossible that those two unfortunate children should be left in their aunts’ “clutches,” and she prepared herself with a steadily increasing determination and grandeur to seize upon and take over and rescue these two innocent souls from the moral and spiritual destruction that threatened them. Once in her hands, Lady Charlotte was convinced it would not be too late to teach the little fellow a proper respect for those in authority over him and to bring home to the girl an adequate sense of that taint upon her life of which she was still so shockingly unaware. The boy must be taught not to call attention to people’s physical peculiarities, and to answer properly when spoken to; a certain sharpness would not be lost upon him; and it was but false kindness to the girl to let her grow up in ignorance of her disadvantage. Sooner or later it would have to be brought home to her, and the later it was the more difficult would it be for her to accept her proper position with a becoming humility. And a thing of immediate urgency was, of course, the baptism of both these little lost souls.
In pursuit of these entirely praiseworthy aims Lady Charlotte was subjected to a series of very irritating rebuffs that did but rouse her to a greater firmness. On her fourth visit she was not even allowed to see the children; the specious excuse was made that they were “out for a walk,” and when she passed that over forgivingly and said: “It does not matter very much. What I want to arrange today is the business of the Christening,” both aunts began to answer at once and in almost identical words. Phœbe gave way to her sister. “If their parents had wanted them Christened,” said Aunt Phyllis, “there was ample time for them to have had it done.”
“We are the parents now,” said Lady Charlotte.
“And two of us are quite of the parents’ mind.”