“How are you, Edward·” said Mr. Lindley, trying on his side to be fatherly. But he was always in a false position with his son-in-law, frustrated before him, therefore, as much as possible, he shut his eyes and ears to him. The vicar was looking thin and pale and ill-nourished. He had gone quite grey. He was, however, still haughty; but, since the growing-up of his children, it was a brittle haughtiness, that might break at any moment and leave the vicar only an impoverished, pitiable figure. Mrs. Lindley took all the notice of her daughter, and of the children. She ignored her son-in-law. Miss Louisa was clucking and laughing and rejoicing over the baby. Mr. Massy stood aside, a bent, persistent little figure.

“Oh a pretty! —a little pretty! oh a cold little pretty come in a railway train!” Miss Louisa was cooing to the infant, crouching on the hearth-rug, opening the white woollen wraps and exposing the child to the fireglow.

“Mary,” said the little clergyman, “I think it would be better to give baby a warm bath;she may take cold.”

“I think it is not necessary,” said the mother, coming and closing her hand judiciously over the rosy feet and hands of the mite. “She is not chilly.”

“Not a bit,” cried Miss Louisa. “She’s not caught cold.”

“I’ll go and bring her flannels,” said Mr. Massy, with one idea.

“I can bath her in the kitchen then,” said Mary, in an altered, cold tone.

“You can’t, the girl is scrubbing there,” said Miss Louisa. “Besides, she doesn’t want a bath at this time of day.”

“She’d better have one,” said Mary, quietly, out of submission. Miss Louisa’s gorge rose, and she was silent. When the little man padded down with the flannels on his arm, Mrs. Lindley asked:

“Hadn’t you better take a hot bath, Edward·”

But the sarcasm was lost on the little clergyman. He was absorbed in the preparations round the baby.

The room was dull and threadbare, and the snow outside seemed fairy-like by comparision, so white on the lawn and tufted on the bushes. Indoors the heavy pictures hung obscurely on the walls, everything was dingy with gloom.

Except in the fireglow, where they had laid the bath on the hearth. Mrs. Massy, her black hair always smoothly coiled and queenly, kneeled by the bath, wearing a rubber apron, and holding the kicking child. Her husband stood holding the towels and the flannels to warm. Louisa, too cross to share in the joy of the baby’s bath, was laying the table. The boy was hanging on the door-knob, wrestling with it to get out. His father looked round.

“Come away from the door, Jack,” he said ineffectually. Jack tugged harder at the knob as if he did not hear. Mr. Massy blinked at him.

“He must come away from the door, Mary,” he said. “There will be a draught if it is opened.”