Meanwhile the child, whose departure had thus loosed free speech,
was leagues distant from the gossip and the unrest which was its
source. Her pink hair bows, even the second-best ones, lifted her to
a state which made it much pleasanter to idle in her window,
sniffing at the honey-suckle, than to hurry down to the piano. She
longed to make up something which, like a tune of water rippling
over pink pebbles, was running through her head. But faithfully, at
last, she toiled through her hour, and then was called on to mind
the Baby.

This last duty was a real pleasure. For she could wheel the
perambulator off to the summerhouse, in a secluded, sweet-smelling
corner of the yard, and there recite poetry aloud. To reinforce
those verses she knew by heart, she carried along the big Anthology
which, in its old-blue binding, contrasted so satisfyingly with the
mahogany table in the sitting-room. The first thing she read was
"Before the Beginning of Years" from "Atalanta in Calydon;" Missy
especially adored Swinburne--so liltingly incomprehensible.

The performance, as ever, was highly successful all around. Baby
really enjoyed it and Poppylinda as well, both of them blinking in
placid appreciation. And as for Missy, the liquid sound of the
metres rolling off her own lips, the phrases so beautiful and so
"deep," seemed to lift a choking something right up into her throat
until she could have wept with the sweet pain of it. She did, as a
matter of fact, happy tears, about which her two auditors asked no
embarrassing question. Baby merely gurgled, and Poppylinda essayed
to climb the declaimer's skirts.