"Goin' out to tea," responded Judy. "Off!" releasing one little white serge shoulder from the enclosing cotton.
Nora moved about her room for a few more minutes before she went to the nursery to pick up her little son. Judy, trotting after, was kissed at the top of the staircase, and, with a sombre fire in her brilliant eyes, watched the descent of Christopher. His air of triumph as he stamped his booted feet on every stair was no doubt aggravating.
It was a cold March day, and, as she noted his gaitered legs, Judy glanced down at her own bare toes. At the sight of his hat, firmly set upon the soft fair curls, Judy lifted her chubby hands to her own bare head—bare but for its clustering brown waves with their tips of gold. A deep sense of unfair treatment, of unjust neglect, flitted across the baby's mind. A great determination filled it.
Nurse went through the open nursery door in a busy manner. It was Jane's afternoon out, and there was a good deal to tidy up. In two minutes Judy, after a fashion of her own, was at the bottom of the wide staircase, a lonely little figure, standing for a moment on the rug before the log fire. Finding the hall door shut and the drawing-room door open, the baby stepped into the conservatory, and was soon trotting down the drive. Her shoulders were set sturdily to a great effort. No one seeing her could possibly mistake their expression. She was going out to tea.
Outside the gates, left open for the exit of a carriage, Judy paused. Just before her, four roads crossed. Three she knew well—one led to the village, the other two were the routes of daily outings. The fourth was forbidden to the nurses because of a big public-house a quarter of a mile away—a rendezvous of trippers from London. Along this road the little figure turned.
A bicyclist rang his bell and startled her, whizzing close by her, as she did not move from the middle of the road. A man in a cart evaded her, pausing to look down with interest at the bare-headed little traveller.
"My! she's a little 'un to be about alone," he thought, turning in his seat to look after the purposeful little figure. He scratched his head and thought of his own baby, about the same size, and for a moment was tempted to turn his cart and go after her.
"She hadn't ought to have been let go out by herself," he thought, indignant with some neglectful guardian. "A little gipsy child, p'raps—never taught not to run in the middle of the road."
Unwitting of the kindly thought that followed her, Judy ran on—now and then pausing for a second to glance about her, her bare feet and uncovered head seeming to reck nothing of the cold spring wind. A timber waggon, drawn by three huge horses, and guided by a carter cracking his whip, made her flit in momentary tremor, with hunched shoulders, to the side of the road, from which security she, however, surveyed their passage with sparkling eyes. Holding out her arms in ecstatic approval, she urged shrilly. "Gee-gee—go, go"; and the carter glanced at her bright face, under its touzled waves of hair, admiringly.
"She's a spirit of her own," he thought, bestowing a momentary wonder on her lone condition as he passed.