“Then we must hurry,” said Norah. “Come along, or Eva will think we have deserted her.”
They found Eva slightly truculent.
“I was wonderin’ was you stayin’ over there to dinner,” she said. “I know I ain’t one of your fine lady cooks with a nime out of the ‘Family ’Erald,’ but there ain’t no ’arm in that there potato pie, for all that!”
“It looks beautiful,” said Norah, regarding the brown pie affectionately. “I’m so glad I’m here for lunch. What does Michael have, Eva?”
“Michael ’as fish—an’ ’e ’as it out in the kitchen with me,” said Eva firmly. “An’ ’is own little baby custid-puddin’. No one but me ever cooks anythink for that kid. Well, of course, you send ’im cakes an’ things,” she added grudgingly.
“Oh, but they’re not nourishment,” said Norah with tact.
“No,” said Eva brightening. “That’s wot I says. An’ nourishment is wot counts, ain’t it?”
“Oh, rather!” Norah said. “And isn’t he a credit to you! Well, come on, children—I want pie!” She drew Alison’s high chair to the table, while Eva, departing to the kitchen, relieved her feelings with a burst of song.
They spent a merry afternoon at the river—a little stream which went gurgling over pebbly shallows, widening now and then into a broad pool, or hurrying over miniature rapids where brown trout lurked. Harry and Bob, like most Australian soldiers in England, were themselves only children when they had the chance of playing with babies; they romped in the grass with them, swung them on low-growing boughs, or skimmed stones across placid pools, until the sun grew low in the west, and they came back across the park. Norah wheeled Michael in a tiny car; Bob carried Alison, and presently Geoffrey admitted that his legs were tired, and was glad to ride home astride Harry’s broad shoulders. Mr. Linton came out to meet them, and they all went back to the cottage, where Eva had tea ready and was slightly aggrieved because her scones had cooled.
“Now, you must all go home,” Norah told her men-folk, after tea. “It’s late, and I have to bath three people.”