“Not a soul,” agreed Tavia. Lance stepped aside and she saw with embarrassment that he was not alone in his ancient equipage. “Oh,” she cried, “we didn’t know you had any one with you.”
“’Tain’t no one, only my wife,” said Lance, with a fond possessive smile. “Ladies, meet Mrs. Petterby, and a finer, prettier wife you wouldn’t meet nowheres.”
The plump young person thus described smiled genially and the girls saw that she was very pretty indeed and of the type generally described as “wholesome.”
“Lance is always ridiculous, but most so when describin’ me,” she said, in a pleasant drawl. “Do be still, Octavia Susan!”
Tavia started, and was very much taken aback until she saw that this remark was not addressed to her but to the small infant in the arms of Susan Petterby.
Lance immediately captured the infant, bringing it forward for closer inspection by the laughing girls.
Octavia Susan Petterby was a pretty little thing, resembling closely her blue-eyed, rosy-cheeked mother.
“My godchild!” exclaimed Tavia dramatically. She stretched out her arms, intending to clasp the baby in a warm embrace, that seeming the right and proper thing to do with one’s godchild. But she got no further than the gesture, for Octavia Susan suddenly shut her eyes and opened her mouth and let out a wail that would have daunted a more phlegmatic person than Tavia.
Even Lance seemed to be slightly apprehensive, for he restored the infant to its mother’s arms with marked alacrity.
“She doesn’t like me!” cried Tavia, in mock chagrin, adding, with a chuckle: “I don’t believe she even knows I’m her godmother.”