"Hang your nurse!" said Humphrey. "Cackling old fool! I suppose in every situation she is in she talks scandal about the last, and where there wasn't any, she makes it up. When does she go?"
"She can't leave Baby until we get another, you know. At least, I hope she won't have to."
"Another?"
"Another nurse. Mamma is going to advertise in The Morning Post for us at once. We want a thoroughly experienced woman, don't we, dear? We don't know anything about babies ourselves, and——"
"Oh, rather! Poor little soul! we owe him as much as that. Life is the cost of the parents' pleasure defrayed by the child. We'll make the world as desirable to him as we can."
He paused for her to comment on his impromptu definition of life, by which he was agreeably conscious he had said something brilliant; but it passed by her unheeded. He reflected that Turquand would either have approved it, or picked it to pieces, and that for it to go unnoticed was hard.
She looked at him tenderly.
"I knew you'd say so. It doesn't really make much difference to our expenses whether we pay twenty pounds a year or twenty-five—and to the kind of nurse we shall get it makes all the difference on earth. What shall we call him?"
"Him! You're not going to get a man?"
"Baby, you silly! Have you thought of a name? I have!"