'Don't say I didn't advise you to draw it mild,' he remarked whilst
breakfasting, when Bessie had for the tenth time obliged him to look
round and give his opinion on points of costume. 'Remember it was
only last week you told them that the imp had never cried since the
day of his birth, and I'll bet you three half-crowns to a bad
halfpenny he roars all through to. night.'
'Hold your tongue, Sam, or I'll throw something at you!'
Samuel had just appeased his morning hunger, and was declaring that
the day promised to be the hottest of the year, such a day as would
bring out every vice inherent in babies, when a very light tap at
the door caused Bessie to abandon her intention of pulling his ears.
'That's Jane,' she said. 'Come in!'
The Jane who presented herself was so strangely unlike her namesake
who lay ill at Mrs. Peckover's four months ago, that one who had not
seen her in the interval would with difficulty have recognised her.
To begin with, she had grown a little; only a little, but enough to
give her the appearance of her full thirteen years. Then her hair no
longer straggled in neglect, but was brushed very smoothly back from
her forehead, and behind was plaited in a coil of perfect neatness;
one could see now that it was soft, fine, mouse-coloured hair, such
as would tempt the fingers to the lightest caress.
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