Joyce generally paid a visit to her mother's dressing-room before this, and on our way out baby was taken in for a few minutes in his little velvet pelisse and hat. We generally found Mrs. Morton reading her letters while Travers brushed out her hair and arranged it for the day. She used to look up so brightly when she saw us, and such a lovely colour would come into her face at the sight of her boy, but she never kept him long. "Be quick, Travers," she would say, putting the child in my arms. "I can hear your master's footsteps on the stairs, and he will be waiting for me." And then she kissed her hand to the children, and took up her letters again; but sometimes I caught a stifled sigh as we went out, as though the day's work was distasteful to her, and she would willingly have changed places with me.
On our return the children had their noonday sleep, and Hannah and I busied ourselves with our sewing until they woke up, and then the nursery dinner was brought up by Rhoda. Hannah always waited upon us before she would consent to take her place.
In the afternoon I sat at my work and watched the children at their play, or played with them. When Reggie was tired I nursed him, and in the twilight I sang to them or told them stories.
I never got quite used to Mr. Morton's visits—they always caused me embarrassment. His duties at the House occupied him so much that he had rarely time to do more than kiss his children. Sometimes Reggie refused to be friendly, and struck at his father with his baby hand, but Mr. Morton only laughed.
"Baby thinks fardie is only a man," Joyce observed once, on one of these occasions, "but him is fardie."
Mr. Morton looked a little grave over this speech.
"Never mind, my little girl; Reggie is only a baby, and will know his father soon." But I think he was grieved a little when baby hid his naughty little face on my shoulder, and refused to make friends. "Go, go," was all he condescended to observe, in answer to his father's blandishments.
Mrs. Morton seldom came up into the nursery until I was putting the children to bed, but even then she never stayed for more than ten minutes. There were always visitors below, or it was time to dress for dinner, or there were letters to write. It was evident that Mr. Morton's wife had no sinecure's post. I think no hard-worked sempstress worked harder than Mrs. Morton in those days.
Now and then, when the children were sleeping sweetly in their little cots, and I was reading by the fire, or writing to Aunt Agatha, or busy about some work of my own, I would hear the soft swish of a silk dress in the corridor outside, and there would be Mrs. Morton, looking lovelier than ever, in evening dress.
"I have just come to kiss my darlings, Merle," she would say. "Dinner is over, and I am going to the theatre with some friends; they are waiting for me now, but I had such a longing to see them that I could not resist it."