Mark came back to us with his sister; and Miss Ambient, making some remark about having to attend to her correspondence, passed into the house. Mark came and stood in front of his wife, looking down at the child, who immediately took hold of his hand, keeping it while he remained. “I think Ailingham ought to see him,” Ambient said; “I think I will walk over and fetch him.”
“That ‘s Gwendolen’s idea, I suppose,” Mrs. Ambient replied, very sweetly.
“It’s not such an out-of-the-way idea, when one’s child is ill.”
“I ‘m not ill, papa; I ‘m much better now,” Dolcino remarked.
“Is that the truth, or are you only saying it to be agreeable? You have a great idea of being agreeable, you know.”
The boy seemed to meditate on this distinction this imputation, for a moment; then his exaggerated eyes, which had wandered, caught my own as I watched him. “Do you think me agreeable?” he inquired, with the candor of his age, and with a smile that made his father turn round to me, laughing, and ask, mutely, with a glance, “Is n’t he adorable?”
“Then why don’t you hop about, if you feel so lusty?” Ambient went on, while the boy swung his hand.
“Because mamma is holding me close!”
“Oh, yes; I know how mamma holds you when I come near!” Ambient exclaimed, looking at his wife.
She turned her charming eyes up to him, without deprecation or concession, and after a moment she said, “You can go for Allingham if you like, I think myself it would be better. You ought to drive.”