“Nurse,” she repeated to her father, with a very puzzled look.
“Yes, dear,” said the stranger, “I’m come to be baby’s nurse. You see she needs so much taking care of just now while she’s still so very little—your nurse wouldn’t have time to do it all.”
“No,” said Mary, “I think it’s a good plan,” and she gave a little sigh of satisfaction. She loved the baby dearly already and she would have been quite ready to give her anything—any of her toys or pretty things, if they would have pleased her—but still she did feel it would have been rather hard for her nurse to be so busy all day that she could not take care of Artie and her as usual.
The strange nurse smiled. Mary was what people call an “old-fashioned” child, and one of her funny expressions was saying anything that she liked was “a good plan.” She stood staring with all her eyes as the nurse cleverly lifted baby out of the cot and laid her on her knee in a comfortable way, so that she left off crying. But her eyes were still open, and Mary came close to look at them.
“Is her going to stay awake now?” she said. “Perhaps she will, for a little while,” said the nurse. “But such very tiny babies like to sleep a great deal.”
Mary stood quite still. She felt as if she could stay there all day just looking at the baby—every moment she found out some new wonder about her.
“Her’s got ears,” she said at last.
“Of course she has,” said the strange nurse. “You wouldn’t like her to be deaf?”
“Baby,” said Mary, but baby took no notice.
“Her it deaf,” she went on, looking very disappointed. “Her doesn’t look at me when I call her.”