Loveday, who had become rather shy when she found herself entering a room so full, stood and looked with interest at the woman who spoke, and presently drew nearer to her:
“Does your baby scream on the other side of his face sometimes?” she asked eagerly.
For a moment Mrs. Rouse looked at her, not quite understanding her.
“Iss, that ’e do, missie,” she said at last, “and pretty often too, when he gets contrairy.”
“I wish you would tell me how he does it,” said Loveday anxiously; “I do want to know.”
But, to her surprise and annoyance, Mrs. Rouse only burst into a peal of laughter. Loveday could not bear to be laughed at at any time, but there, before a whole roomful of strangers, it was really dreadful, she thought. With very red cheeks she turned away and walked straight out of the school-house, and glad she was that she did, for as she left she heard Mrs. Rouse telling the others what she had said; after which they all laughed.
Loveday was very mortified and angry.
“I wish I hadn’t gone in,” she thought; “I won’t look at their babies again, if they want me to ever so much. I think they are very ugly babies, and—and I’ll say so if they laugh at me any more.”
She climbed up into the carriage, and perched herself on the seat, but very soon she remembered that by-and-by the women and their babies would all come out by that same door, and she would have to face them all. When she remembered this she felt she could not possibly stay there, so she climbed down again and wondered what she should do with herself. She walked along the road a little way while she pondered, and at last, around a bend in it, she saw to her great astonishment the “giant’s arm-chair.”