I should not admire them so much. I suppose it's the same feeling
bachelors have for other people's wives. But I know you're dying to
take that boy from me. Take him, then, and don't be ashamed to carry him
yourself just because I'm here; you know you would delight to do it if I
weren't."
Barker bent over the silken lap in which the child was comfortably
nestling, and in that attitude had a faint consciousness that Mrs.
Horncastle was mischievously breathing into his curls a silent laugh.
Barker lifted his firstborn with proud skillfulness, but that sagacious
infant evidently knew when he was comfortable, and in a paroxysm of
objection caught his father's curls with one fist, while with the other
he grasped Mrs. Horncastle's brown braids and brought their heads into
contact. Upon which humorous situation Norah, the nurse, entered.
"It's all right, Norah," said Mrs. Horncastle, laughing, as she
disengaged herself from the linking child. "Mr. Barker has claimed
the baby, and has agreed to forgive you and me and say nothing to Mrs.
Barker." Norah, with the inscrutable criticism of her sex on her sex,
thought it extremely probable, and halted with exasperating discretion.
"There," continued Mrs. Horncastle, playfully evading the child's
further advances, "go with papa, that's a dear. Mr. Barker prefers to
carry him back, Norah."
"But," said the ingenuous and persistent Barker, still lingering
in hopes of recalling the woman's previous expression, "you DO love
children, and you think him a bright little chap for his age?"
"Yes," said Mrs. Horncastle, putting back her loosened braid, "so round
and fat and soft. And such a discriminating eye for jewelry. Really you
ought to get a necklace like mine for Mrs. Barker--it would please both,
you know." She moved slowly away, the united efforts of Norah and Barker
scarcely sufficing to restrain the struggling child from leaping after
her as she turned at the door and blew him a kiss.
When Barker regained his room he found that Mrs. Barker had dismissed
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