“Oh! Why,� cried the other, “it is A BABY’S CRADLE!�
“It was delivered,� said Lady Cranberry, “at this door as we came up. It cannot be for a doll: it is full-sized. What on earth can Lotta want with such a thing?�
As she uttered these words the servant returned. His mistress begged the ladies to come upstairs. He delivered his message, and then, with well-trained gravity, lifted the compromising cradle and led the way upstairs. Mrs. Lovelace-Legge did not purpose to receive her friends in the drawing-room, it appeared, or even on the floor above, where her bedroom and boudoir were situated. The ladies were conducted by their guide to regions more airy still; indeed, their progress knew no pause until they reached the highest landing. Here Lady Cranberry received another shock, for a gaily-painted wooden gate, newly hung, gave access to a space where a rocking-horse stood rampant in all the glory of bright paint and red leather trappings; and beyond, through an open door, shone a glimpse of an infantile Paradise, all rosebud dimity, blue ribbons, and brightness, in the midst of which moved Mrs. Lovelace-Legge radiant in a lawn apron with Valenciennes insertion, issuing directions to a head nurse of matronly proportions, an under-nurse of less discretionary years, and a young person dressed in blue baize, trimmed with red braid and buttons, whose functions were less determinable.
“My dears!� Mrs. Lovelace-Legge fluttered to her friends and kissed them, and nothing save Lady Cranberry’s imperative need of an explanation kept that lady from swooning on the spot. “You find me all anyhow,� said Lotta, with beaming eyes. “But come—come and look.� She pioneered the way into the room beyond, with its Lilliputian fittings, its suggestive cosiness, its scent of violet powder and new flannel. “Do you think he will be happy here?� she asked, with a tender quasi-maternal quaver of delightful anticipation.
“Who is—He?�
Lady Cranberry hardly recognized her own voice, so transformed was it by the emotions she suppressed; but Mrs. Lovelace-Legge noticed nothing. “Who?� she echoed, and then laughed with moist, beaming eyes. “Who but the baby? Is it possible I haven’t told you? Or Lucy?� The second-best-beloved shook her head. “No. You see—the news of his coming was broken so suddenly that I was carried off my feet, and since then I’ve done nothing but engage nurses and buy baby things. This is Mrs. Porter�—she turned to the matronly person—“who will have entire charge of my pet—when he arrives; and this is Susan, her assistant. This�—she indicated the anomaly in blue baize and red braid—“is Miss Pilsener, from the Brompton Kindergarten. She is going to teach me how to open his little—little mind, and be everything to him from the very beginning!�
“Won’t you open our little minds?� implored the second-best friend. “You know we are in a state of the darkest ignorance.�
Mrs. Lovelace-Legge dismissed her attendants, and made her friends sit down on the nursery sofa, and sank into a low nursing-chair. She absently tried on an india-rubber apron as she spoke, and it was plain her heart was with the invisible infant. “Ask me questions,� she said. “I don’t seem able to keep my thoughts concentrated on anything but—baby!�
“You must understand, Lotta,� said Lady Cranberry, “that to find you in possession of�—she gulped—“a baby is a shock in itself to your most intimate friends. And in the name of your regard for Lucy, supposing myself to have no claim upon your confidence, I must ask you to explain how you come to be in possession of such a—such a thing? And to—to whom it belongs—and where it is coming from?�
“I came into possession of baby through a dear friend,� explained Mrs. Lovelace-Legge. She added: “Perhaps you have heard of General Carabyne—Lieutenant-General Ranford Carabyne of the Ordnance Department, Calcutta?�