THEIR CHILD
I
“THERE he comes with Dora! I am so glad. I wanted you to see him so much—all of you.”
The company gathered in the drawing-room smiled sympathetically at the mother’s pride. They craned their necks about the window to get sight of the small boy. He was a white speck in the long green lawn.
“Comes rather reluctantly,” observed Dr. Vessinger, with a touch of irony. “Doesn’t seem to have his mother’s taste for society!”
“The little dear! How cunning! A perfect dear!” the women exclaimed with more or less animation.
“Why, he is in such a temper! Little Oscar! What is the matter with little Oscar?”
The child’s screams could be heard plainly, coming upward from the lawn, in shrill bursts of infantile passion. Mrs. Simmons was troubled with a mother’s confusion and distress. The nurse was holding little Oscar at arm’s length, for safety, while the child circled about her, kicking and thrusting with legs and arms. Mrs. Simmons stepped through the open window to the terrace and called: