"She might have waited a wee while," said Edmund, not at all disposed to take a charitable view of Miss Selina Brooks; "one can't have everything straight in a new house all in a minute. Why is your house like a church outside?"
Mrs. Methuen laughed. "It isn't in the least like a church inside. Come and see!" and as she opened the front door the boys followed her into a square hall furnished like a room. It was a big house, and extremely comfortable, with wide staircase and easy steps not half so steep as those in Holywell.
Mrs. Methuen ran up very fast, the boys after her.
She took them into a room where a plump, pink baby, about eighteen months old, had just been bathed and was sitting smiling and majestic on the nurse's knee. His clothing, it was a boy baby, as yet consisted of a flannel band; while a dab of violet powder on one cheek gave him a rakish air.
"My precious," said Mrs. Methuen, kissing the scantily attired one; "you must look after these gentlemen for me for a few minutes;" and she forthwith vanished from the room.
The nurse smiled and nodded to them. The baby remarked, "Mamma!" to no one in particular, and looked puzzled and hurt that she could tear herself away so soon. He wasn't used to it.
Edmund and Montagu advanced shyly towards their youthful host.
"Say how d'you do to the nice young gentlemen, like a good baby," said the nurse in tones that subtly combined command and supplication.
"Do," said the baby obediently.
"Will I turn for him?" asked Edmund, who had an idea that infants must always be amused or else they cried. Without waiting for an affirmative he flung himself over on his hands and turned Catherine wheels right round the room. Edmund was light and active and an adept in the art. The baby was charmed. His fat sides shook with delighted laughter, and he shouted gleefully, "Adain!"