"Father, father, you here?" said the boy. "You here?" echoed the girl, and the whole cavalcade drew up in front of Charlotte and the thin clergyman. The boy in an instant was on his father's knee, and the girl, helping herself mightily by Charlotte's dress, had got on the bench.
The baby seeing this began to cry. The small nurse seemed incapable of action, and Charlotte herself had to come to the rescue. She lifted the little seven months old creature out of its carriage, and placed it in its father's arms.
He raised his eyes gratefully to her face and placed his arm round the baby.
"Oh! I'm falling," said the girl. "This seat is so slippy, may I sit on your knee?"
It seemed the most natural thing in the world for Charlotte to take this strange, shabbily dressed little girl into her embrace.
The child began to stroke down and admire her soft furs.
"Aren't they lovely?" she said. "Oh, Harold, look! Feel 'em, Harold; they're like pussies."
Harold, absorbed with his father, turned his full blue eyes round gravely and fixed them not on the furs, but on the strange lady's face.
"Father," he said in a slow, solemn tone, "may I kiss that pretty lady?"
"My dear boy, no, no. I am ashamed of you. Now run away, children; go on with your walk. Nurse, take baby."