"Do nasty little girls?"
"Only nasty little girls would do it, I think."
Fay pondered this for a minute, then in a regretfully reflective voice she said sadly: "Vat was a nasty, gleedy sahib in a tlain."
"Not at all," Meg argued, struggling with her mirth. "How would you have liked it if he'd asked you to give him your bonnet 'to keep'?"
Little Fay hastily put up her hands to her head to be sure her bonnet was in its place, then she inquired with great interest: "What's 'is place, deah Med?"
"Deah Med" soon found herself followed round by a small crowd of other sight-seers who waited for and greeted little Fay's unceasing comments with joyful appreciation. Such popular publicity was not at all to Meg's taste, and although the afternoon was extremely cold her cheeks never ceased to burn till she got the children safely back to the flat again. Tony was gloomy and taciturn. Nobody took the slightest notice of
him. Weather that seemed to brace his sister to the most energetic gaiety only made him feel torpid and miserable. He was not naughty, merely apathetic, uninterested, and consequently uninteresting. Meg thought he might be homesick and sad about Ayah, and was very kind and gentle, but her advances met with no response.
By this time Tony was sure of his aunt, but he had by no means made up his mind about Meg.
When they got back to Kensington Meg joyously handed over the children to Jan while she retired to her room to array herself in her uniform. She was to "take over" from that moment, and approached her new sphere with high seriousness and an intense desire to be, as she put it, "a wild success."
For weeks she had been reading the publications of the P. N. E. U. and the "Child-Study Society," to say nothing of Manuals upon "Infant Hygiene," "The Montessori Method" and "The Formation of Character." Sympathy and Insight, Duty and Discipline, Self-Control and Obedience, Regularity and Concentration of Effort—all with the largest capitals—were to be her watchwords. And she buttoned on her well-fitting white linen apron (newest and most approved hospital pattern, which she had been obliged to make herself, for she could buy nothing small enough) in a spirit of dedication as sincere as that imbuing any candidate for Holy Orders. Then, almost breathlessly, she put her cap upon her flaming head and surveyed the general effect in the long glass.