'Some time to-day, I hope,' I answered. 'No, the young ladies don't know yet. They're fast asleep. But I thought you'd like to know.'
'How good of you!' he said. 'I'm just so pleased that I don't know what to do.'
What a morning of excitement it was, to be sure! The children were all half off their heads with delight. All, that is to say, except Miss Baby, who burst out crying in the middle of her breakfast, sobbing that she 'wouldn't have no—something——' We couldn't make out what for ever so long, till we found it was her name she was crying about, as of course we were all talking of the new little brother as 'the baby.' We comforted her by saying that anyway he would not be 'Miss Baby'; and perhaps from that it came about that her old name clung to her till she was quite a big girl, and almost from the first Master Bevil got his real name.
He was a great darling—so strong and hearty too—and so handsome even as an infant. Everything seemed to go right with him from the very beginning.
'Surely,' I often said to myself, 'he will bring a blessing with him. And now that my lady's great wish has been granted, I do hope she will feel more trustful and less anxious.'
I hoped too that she would now have happier feelings to poor Master Francis, especially when she saw his devotion to the baby boy. For of all the children I must say he was the one who loved the little creature the most.
And for a while all seemed tending in the right way, but when the baby was a few weeks old, I began to fear that something of the old trouble was in the air again. Fresh money difficulties happened about that time, though of course I didn't know exactly what they were. But it was easy to see that my lady was fretted, she was not one to hide anything she was feeling.
One day, it was in June, as far as I remember, my lady was in the nursery with Miss Lally and Miss Baby and the real baby. The two elder children were downstairs at their lessons with Sir Hulbert. Master Bevil was looking beautiful that afternoon. We had laid him down on a rug on the floor, and he was kicking and crowing as if he had been six months old, his little sisters chattering and laughing to him, while my lady sat by in the rocking-chair, looking for once as if she had thrown all her cares aside.
'He really is getting on beautifully,' she said to me. 'Doesn't he look a great big boy?'
I was rather glad of the remark, for it gave me a chance to say something that had been on my mind.