Here Miss Chichester interrupted him to say:
“Excuse me, Barry; I just want to ask Mr. Farrar if Mrs. Farrar is at home. If she is, I would dearly love to have a five minutes’ chat with her.”
“She’s at home,” was the reply; “up-stairs, I think. I’ll ask Stella.”
The maid came in response to his ring, and was sent to inquire if Mrs. Farrar would see Miss Chichester. She returned in a minute to say that Mrs. Farrar would be delighted, if Miss Chichester wouldn’t mind going up-stairs to the nursery, where Mrs. Farrar was temporarily engaged. Of course Miss Chichester wouldn’t mind. It would be her first glimpse of the nursery which she had long been curious to see. She found Mrs. Farrar there in temporary charge of the youngest member of the family who had just fallen asleep.
“What a lovely child!” exclaimed Miss Chichester in a whisper, bending over the crib.
“Yes, he’s a dear. He doesn’t mind in the least having people talk in the room when he’s asleep,” said Mrs. Farrar.
“How comforting that is!” Miss Chichester took a chair near the window where she could look out across the rectory lawn to the street. “We missed you so at the Parish Aid Society Tuesday afternoon at Ruth Tracy’s. You weren’t ill, were you?”
“Oh, no. Mr. Farrar discovered another poor family up in the eight hundred block. The mother’s bedridden, and nothing would do but I must go up and see her Tuesday afternoon.”
“How kind Mr. Farrar is to the poor. What a pity it is that the vestry isn’t in sympathy with him in his concern for the lower classes.”
“Isn’t it? I didn’t know.”