night if one of her charges made the slightest cry. Of course
her kennel was in the nursery. She had a genius for knowing when
a cough is a thing to have no patience with and when it needs
stocking around your throat. She believed to her last day in
old-fashioned remedies like rhubarb leaf, and made sounds of
contempt over all this new-fangled talk about germs, and so on.
It was a lesson in propriety to see her escorting the children to
school, walking sedately by their side when they were well
behaved, and butting them back into line if they strayed. On
John's footer [in England soccer was called football, "footer"
for short] days she never once forgot his sweater, and she
usually carried an umbrella in her mouth in case of rain. There
is a room in the basement of Miss Fulsom's school where the
nurses wait. They sat on forms, while Nana lay on the floor,
but that was the only difference. They affected to ignore her as
of an inferior social status to themselves, and she despised
their light talk. She resented visits to the nursery from Mrs.
Darling's friends, but if they did come she first whipped off
Michael's pinafore and put him into the one with blue braiding,
and smoothed out Wendy and made a dash at John's hair.

No nursery could possibly have been conducted more correctly,
and Mr. Darling knew it, yet he sometimes wondered uneasily
whether the neighbours talked.

He had his position in the city to consider.

Nana also troubled him in another way. He had sometimes a
feeling that she did not admire him. "I know she admires you
tremendously, George," Mrs. Darling would assure him, and then