One bright July day two ladies are seated at the window of the old drawing-room at Nutsgrove. One, old and massively spectacled, is busy knitting a diminutive jersey; the other, with a pretty air of chronic invalidism that Mrs. Wittiterly might have copied with effect, is lying in an easy-chair, her white hands idle on her lap, watching a baby, unwieldy and almost shapeless with the quantity of flesh his tender age has to carry, playing with a kitten at her feet, pulling its tail, turning back its ears, clasping it ecstatically to a fat heaving chest, until at last, with one frantic wriggle and a smart little tap on the chubby arm torturing it, the unfortunate brute gets free, and, with a spring, clears the open window.
"Well done, puss, well done!" says Addie, laughing. "For the last ten minutes I've been trying to summon up energy to come to your rescue, but couldn't. Well done!"
For a moment the baby looks in utter silence from the thin red streak on his arm to his mother's callous face; then, having taken in the full measure of his grievance, he stiffens out his limbs, clinches his fists, closes his eyes, opens his mouth until the corners almost reach his ears, and gives vent to the most soul-piercing, stupendous roar that has ever echoed through the walls of Nutsgrove within the memory of a Lefroy.
The mighty volume electrifies the household, and brings servants and friends from all quarters—brings Armstrong from his study, his face pale with apprehension.
"What is it? He is killed—my boy?"
"No," pants Addie, "not quite. There is, I think, a little life left in him still."
"But he has frightened, he has excited you, my love; you look quite flushed. You must drink this glass of wine at once, Addie."
"He is gone?" asks Miss Darcy, cautiously withdrawing her fingers from her tortured ears, and, turning to her host and hostess, exclaims contemptuously—