“Why, yes, I can take him at once,” replied Miss Leslie, quite trembling with excitement, and commending Gerty to all the special favours of providence for the evident influence she exerted on the flabby mind of her mistress—“Nothing will please me better.”
“Such a funny notion of yours!” smiled Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir, hovering over the tea-things like a sort of large loosely-feathered bird. “You are such a regular old maid, Letitia, that I should have thought you wouldn’t have had a child messing about in your beautiful house for the world. However, if you really want him, take him,—but you must have him alone—I can’t spare Gerty.”
Gerty smiled broadly.
“Oh, Miss Leslie won’t want me, ’m,” she cheerfully declared. “Master Boy don’t give no trouble. Shall I put his clothes together, ’m? He ain’t got nothing but his white flannel sailor-suit and two little shirts and nightgowns.”
Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir sighed wearily.
“Oh dear, don’t bother me about such things!” she said. “Just make a brown-paper parcel of what you think the child will want for a week, and put it in Miss Leslie’s brougham. You came in your brougham, Letitia? Of course. Yes. That will be all right. Put it all in the brougham, Gerty.”
“Yes, ’m. Shall I bring in Master Boy’s hat and overcoat in here?”
“Certainly. Dear me, what a fuss!” Here Gerty promptly left the room. “One would think the child was going to the wilds of Africa! Do you take sugar, Letitia? Yes? Ah, you are not inclined to be at all stout, are you?”—this with a somewhat envious glance at Miss Leslie’s still perfectly graceful and svelte figure—“No, I should think you must be nearly all skin and bone. Now, I can never take sugar. I put on flesh directly. Here is your tea. Boy, do you want any more milk?”
Boy had, during the past few minutes, remained in a condition of bland staring. Vague notions that his “wanting out” with Kiss-Letty was going to be a granted and accomplished fact, pleased his little brain, but he had no skill to discourse on his sensations, even in broken language. He was however too happy to require any extra feeding. He therefore declined the offer of ‘more milk’ with a negative shake of his gold curls, and after a little further consideration, clambered off Miss Letitia’s knee and went to his mother.
“Me goin’ out wiz Kiss-Letty?” he inquired with a solemn air.