“O, the baby isn’t afraid of them?”
“O no, the baby isn’t afraid of anybody,” returned Anna before she had time to reflect. Then she flushed. “I mean he isn’t afraid of anyone he’s used to. Of course he’s used to them.”
“Then he’d get used to me?” Mrs. Langley half-asserted, half-questioned. Anna’s heart sank.
“I guess Joe, Junior’d better not go so far from home again until he’s older,” she said gently. “I ought to have known better. But I can come just the same. The boys have already offered to mind him Saturday.”
“But I want to see him again,” Mrs. Langley insisted. And Anna felt as if she were standing on her head, to have Mrs. Langley begging to see the baby and to be trying to hold her off.
“Yes, indeed, Mrs. Langley, when he’s a wee bit older,” she temporized, but the other broke in impatiently. “Anna Miller! it’s just because he’s a baby that I want to see him. When he’s older, I sha’n’t care.”
Anna sighed.
“He’ll get used to me,” Mrs. Langley urged. “I understand that he lets Mr. Langley hold him?”
“O, any child would go to Mr. Langley, he’s so good and so——”
“So what?” demanded the minister’s wife, so fiercely that Anna faltered the word she had meant to swallow: handsome.