"I'll do my best, I really will," said Jane-Anne, "and it'll be rather fun to wheel it about, and I shall look very proud and stand-off like Mrs. Methuen's Nannie. I expect people will admire me very much and wonder whose nurse I am."
"That is possible," Mr. Wycherly politely acquiesced.
"Shall I have to make the beds that morning, sir?"
"That, my dear child, is your good aunt's province, not mine."
"Master, dear—whenever you speak of aunt to me, you say she's good, or worthy, or excellent, or sensible—do you say those nice things about me when I'm not there? Do you say 'my excellent Jane-Anne' when you talk about me to Mrs. Methuen? I hope you do—or 'that most sensible girl'—do you?"
"How do you know I ever talk about you at all to Mrs. Methuen?"
Jane-Anne looked rather foolish for a moment, then brightened as she remarked: "But you must to know all about Mrs. Cox's baby and Norland Nurses, and that. I'm sorry, though, that the young gentlemen have all gone down; I'd like them to have seen me wheeling the pram."
"My dear child," exclaimed Mr. Wycherly with real consternation in his voice. "You surely don't suppose that a well-bred undergraduate would be aware of the existence of a little girl wheeling a perambulator."
"They're aware of my existence, anyway, master, dear. I heard one say one day: 'Look what hair that flapper's got.'"
"A most impertinent and ill-bred young man. I hope you felt very angry."