“Why, can’t you read?” asked Budge.
“Oh, yes,” sighed Mrs. Burton. “’But whether there be knowledge it shall vanish away.’”
“’But love never faileth,’” responded Mr. Lawrence.
“If you want to learn anythin’,” said Budge, “just you ask my papa. He’ll make you know all about it, no matter how awful stupid you are.”
“Many thanks for the advice—and the insinuations,” said Mrs. Burton. “I feel as if the latter were specially pertinent, from the daze my head is in. I never knew before how necessary it was to be nobody in order to be somebody.”
The boys took possession of their father, one on each knee, and Tom rocked with them and chatted in a low tone to them, and hummed a tune, and finally broke into a song, and as it happened to be one of the variety known as “roaring,” his brother-in-law joined him, and the air recalled old friends and old associations, and both voices grew louder, and the ladies caught the air and increased its volume with their own voices, when suddenly a very shrill thin voice was heard above their heads, and Mrs. Lawrence exclaimed:
“Sh—h—h! The baby is awake.”
Subsequent sounds indicated beyond doubt that Mrs. Lawrence was correct in her supposition, and she started instinctively for the upper floor, but found herself arrested by her husband’s arm and anxious face, while Mrs. Burton exclaimed,
“Oh, bring it down here! Please, do!”
The nurse was summoned, and soon appeared with a wee bundle of flannel, linen, pink face and fingers.