"Now sit still, Miss Nancy, while I do up the back."
"Oh, silly old clothes!" said Nancy.
Then one day she declared,
"I want to be dirty like those children in the garden."
"And a nice state your mother would be in!" cried the amazed nurse.
"Father wouldn't," Nancy thought. "Father wouldn't mind."
There came at last the wonderful day when her father penetrated into the
nursery. He arrived furtively, very much, it appeared, ashamed of
himself and exceedingly shy of the nurse. He did not remain very long.
He said very little; a funny picture he had made with his blue face, his
black shiny hair, his fat little legs, and his anxious, rather stupid
eyes. He sat rather awkwardly in a chair, with Nancy on his knee; he
wrung his hair for things to say.
The nurse left them for a moment alone together, and then Nancy
whispered:
"Daddy, let's go into the gardens together, you and me; just us--no
silly old nurse--one mornin'." (She found the little "g" still a
difficulty.)
"Would you like that?" he whispered back. "I don't know I'd be much good
in a garden."
"Oh, you'll be all right," she asserted with confidence.
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