"Marian, dear, come take your wraps off." Miss Kelly had stowed Letty's go-duck in the hall closet, and followed Catherine. "You musn't bother Spencer."
"He's well now, isn't he?" She lagged into the bedroom.
Catherine sat on one of the cots, watching. She had scarcely seen her two daughters since she had come back. She had known they were well, she had heard Miss Kelly often sidetracking them with, "No, your mamma is busy and you mustn't disturb her. Poor little Spencer needs her and you don't." Miss Kelly had lifted Letty into a chair and was unbuttoning the red coat when Letty set up a strident wail, and stiffened into a ramrod which slid out from under Miss Kelly's fingers.
"Want my Muvver!" she shrieked. "Not you!" She flung herself on the edge of the bed beside Catherine, with gyrations of her red-gaitered plump legs. Catherine, laughing, dragged her up beside her. Letty snuggled against her, peering up with her blandishing smile.
"All right, old lady." Catherine tugged off the tiny rubbers, stripped down the knit leggings, noticing absently the promptness with which Marian carried her own cloak and tarn to the closet and hung them away. Why, Miss Kelly had taught her to be orderly, she marveled. Then she saw Letty's expression of sidewise expectancy under long lashes. Miss Kelly was looking at her gravely.
"Letty tired." She drooped into Catherine's enclosing arm like a sleepy kitten.
"That's too bad." Miss Kelly was unruffled. "Then you can't show your mamma your own hook that you can reach."
Letty was quiet. Catherine felt the child's body stiffen a little from its kittenlike relaxation, as if her inner conflict was purely muscular, not thought at all. That's the way children must think, she speculated. With a giggle Letty slid down from the bed, hugged her arms about the pile of scarlet garments, and marched to the closet.
"I screwed a hook into the door, low down," Miss Kelly explained. "Usually Letty doesn't have to be told."