Mr. Nichols resisted a strong impulse to set her down forcibly. His attitude toward Loulou was a continual reproach to him. He knew, as his wife often reminded him, that Loulou had been his pet when she was a baby; he knew that he really loved her, and that if she were ill his fatherly affection would assert itself in the utmost care for her; but now her presence in rude and awkward health annoyed and irritated him beyond expression.
“If Quintilia dies, I’ll be the baby!”
“For shame, Loulou!” said the eldest girl, Christine, who had her mother’s own gentle manner. “You mustn’t talk like that. Ethel and Edith, don’t make so much noise. They can’t go to bed, father dear, until Ann comes back; she’s just gone to the village for something Miss Candy wanted.”
“Miss Candy is awful pretty!” said the bounding Loulou. “Stan waited by the stairs to-night to see her come down. She calls him Mr. Stanley, and he’s been going errands for her all the afternoon. And he put on his best jacket!”
“I didn’t,” blurted Stan, with a very red face, regardless of the chorus of horrified ohos! from the rest of the children. “Well, if I did, it was because the old one was torn.”
“If Quintilia dies, I’ll be the baby.” Loulou reverted to the first idea.
Stan cried, “Shut up, will you?” and threw his book at her, being a boy on whom years of training had had no appreciable effect; but Christine came and put her arm around her father’s neck and kissed him, with her soft braid of yellow hair falling across his shoulder, and he pressed the little comforter to him fondly.
Anxiety about Quintilia had grown by morning. Mrs. Nichols came down to breakfast in a brown cambric gown, with her hair brushed severely back from her forehead, and hurriedly drank a cup of coffee. The tense expression of her face, which she strove to render cheerful, took some of the charm for Mr. Nichols from Miss Candy’s curls and crispness. He left the house with a load upon him, which grew heavier—and lighter—heavier—and lighter, with rhythmical regularity, as hope or fear predominated.
Nearly a week passed, and still the baby’s life hung wavering in the balance; the president had come down town every day, looking grayer and quieter each morning.
He came to the office mechanically, and attended mechanically to the business that had to be transacted. He was dulled to a strange and abnormal gentleness both there and at home. He thanked those who performed the usual services for him in the office with punctilious politeness.