“You shouldn’t have cried,” said Artie. “You should have looked at him grand—like this.”
And Artie reared up his head as high as he could get it out of his brown-holland blouse, and stared round at Dolly, who was cooing and laughing at him over nurse’s shoulder, with such a very severe face, that the poor baby, not knowing what she had done to vex him, drew down the corners of her mouth and opened her blue eyes very wide and then burst into a pitiful cry. Artie changed all at once.
“Darling baby, kiss Artie,” he said. “Sweet baby Artie wasn’t angry with you.”
But nurse told him he should not frighten Miss Baby. She was such a noticing little lady already.
“And I forgaved the boy,” said Mary. “I shaked hands with him.”
Nobody could quite see what this had to do with Artie and baby, but Mary seemed to know what she meant. Perhaps she thought that if she had “looked grand” at the boy, he would have set off crying like poor Dolly.
Then when tea was over and grace had been said—it was Artie’s turn to say grace, and he was always very slow at his tea, so they had some time to wait—mamma undid the parcels that she had sent up to the nursery. The children all came round to see the things, and Mary was very pleased to be able to explain about them.
“I helped mamma to choose, didn’t I, mamma dear?” she kept saying.
She was most proud of all, I think, about Baby Dolly’s ribbons. And nurse thought them very pretty indeed, and so I suppose did baby, for she caught hold of them when Mary held them out and tried to stuff them all into her mouth. That is a baby’s way of showing it thinks things are pretty; it fancies they must be good to eat.
“And my reins, mamma?” said Leigh at last; “when are you coming to my reins?”