``Nonsense! It's just that I'm so--so tired,''
she insisted. ``I shall be all right soon. How did you leave the children?''
``Well, and happy--'specially little Kate, because mother was going away. Kate is mistress, you know, when I'm gone, and she takes herself very seriously.''
``Mistress! A little thing like her! Why, she can't be more than ten or eleven,'' murmured Billy.
``She isn't. She was ten last month. But you'd think she was forty, the airs she gives herself, sometimes. Oh, of course there's Nora, and the cook, and Miss Winton, the governess, there to really manage things, and Mother Hartwell is just around the corner; but little Kate _thinks_she's managing, so she's happy.''
Billy suppressed a smile. Billy was thinking that little Kate came naturally by at least one of her traits.
``Really, that child is impossible, sometimes,''
resumed Mrs. Hartwell, with a sigh. ``You know the absurd things she was always saying two or three years ago, when we came on to Cyril's wedding.''
``Yes, I remember.''
``Well, I thought she would get over it. But she doesn't. She's worse, if anything; and sometimes her insight, or intuition, or whatever you may call it, is positively uncanny. I never know what she's going to remark next, when I take her anywhere; but it's safe to say, whatever it is, it'll be unexpected and _usually_ embarrassing to somebody.
And--is that the baby?'' broke off Mrs.
Hartwell, as a cooing laugh and a woman's voice came from the next room.
``Yes. The nurse has just brought him in, Ithink,'' said Billy.
``Then I'll go right now and see him,''
rejoined Kate, rising to her feet and hurrying into the next room.
Left alone, Billy lay back wearily in her reclining-chair. She wondered why Kate always tired her so. She wished she had had on her blue kimono, then perhaps Kate would not have thought she looked so badly. Blue was always more becoming to her than--Billy turned her head suddenly. From the next room had come Kate's clear-cut, decisive voice.
``Oh, no, I don't think he looks a bit like his father. That little snubby nose was never the Henshaw nose.''
Billy drew in her breath sharply, and pulled herself half erect in her chair. From the next room came Kate's voice again, after a low murmur from the nurse.
``Oh, but he isn't, I tell you. He isn't one bit of a Henshaw baby! The Henshaw babies are always _pretty_ ones. They have more hair, and they look--well, different.''
Billy gave a low cry, and struggled to her feet.
``Oh, no,'' spoke up Kate, in answer to another indistinct something from the nurse. ``Idon't think he's near as pretty as the twins. Of course the twins are a good deal older, but they have such a _bright_ look,--and they did have, from the very first. I saw it in their tiniest baby pictures. But this baby--''
``_This_ baby is _mine_, please,'' cut in a tremulous, but resolute voice; and Mrs. Hartwell turned to confront Bertram, Jr.'s mother, manifestly weak and trembling, but no less manifestly blazing-eyed and determined.
``Why, Billy!'' expostulated Mrs. Hartwell, as Billy stumbled forward and snatched the child into her arms.
``Perhaps he doesn't look like the Henshaw babies. Perhaps he isn't as pretty as the twins.
Perhaps he hasn't much hair, and does have a snub nose. He's my baby just the same, and Ishall not stay calmly by and see him abused!
Besides, _I_ think he's prettier than the twins ever thought of being; and he's got all the hair I want him to have, and his nose is just exactly what a baby's nose ought to be!'' And, with a superb gesture, Billy turned and bore the baby away.
