"Take him away," sobbed Mrs. Nevill Tyson.

"Ma'am?" said the nurse.

"Take him away, I tell you. I won't--I can't nurse him. It--it makes me

ill."

And forthwith she went off into a fit of hysterics.

It was at this crisis of the baby's fate that Miss Batchelor, of all

people, took it into her head to call. After all, Tyson was Nevill

Tyson, Esquire, of Thorneytoft, and his wife had been somewhere very near

death's door. People who would have died rather than call for any other

reason, called "to inquire." As did Miss Batchelor, saying to herself

that nothing should induce her to go in.

Now as she was inquiring in her very softest voice, who should come up to

the doorstep but Tyson. He smiled as he greeted her. He was polite; he

was charming; for as a matter of fact he had been rather hard-driven of

late, and a little kindness touched him, especially when it came from an

unexpected quarter.

"This is very good of you, Miss Batchelor," said he. "I hope you'll come

in and see my wife."

Miss Batchelor played nervously with her card-case.

"I--I--Would your wi--would Mrs. Tyson care to see me?"

He smiled again. "I think I can answer for that."

And to her own intense surprise, for the first and last time Miss

Batchelor crossed the threshold of Thorneytoft.

They found the little woman sitting in her drawing-room with her hands

before her, and Mrs. Nevill Tyson did not smile at Miss Batchelor as she

greeted her. Perhaps with her feminine instinct and antipathy, she felt

that Miss Batchelor had not come to see her. So she smiled at her

husband, and the smile was gall and wormwood to the clever woman; it had

the effect, too, of bringing back to her recollection the occasion on

which she had last seen Mrs. Nevill Tyson smiling. She wondered whether

Mrs. Nevill Tyson also recalled the incident. If she did she must find

the situation rather trying.

Apparently Mrs. Nevill Tyson was so happily constituted that to her

trying situations were a stimulant and a resource. She prattled to Miss

Batchelor about her new side-saddle, and her "friend, Captain

Stanistreet"--any subject that came uppermost and dragged another with

it to the surface.

Miss Batchelor was very kind and sympathetic; she took an interest in the

saddle; she assured Mrs. Nevill Tyson that Drayton Parva had been much

concerned on her account; and she asked to see the baby.

The next instant she was sorry she had done so, for Tyson, who had

continued to be charming, went out of the room when the baby came in.

The child was laid in Mrs. Nevill Tyson's lap, and she looked at it with

a gay indifference. "Isn't he a queer thing?" said she. "He isn't pretty

a bit, so you needn't say so. Nevill calls him a boiled shrimp, and a

little rat. He is rather like a little rat--a baby rat, when it's all

pink and squirmy, you know, and its eyes just opened--they've got such

pretty bright eyes. But I'm afraid baby's eyes are more like pig's eyes.

Well, they're pretty too. As he's so ugly I expect he's going to be

clever, like Nevill. They say he's like me. What do you think? Look at

his forehead. Do you think he's going to be clever?"




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