e at the
office, say ten shillings, making two nine and six, with your eighteen
and three makes three nine seven, with five naught naught in my
cheque-book makes eight nine seven,--who is that moving?--eight nine
seven, dot and carry seven--don't speak, my own--and the pound you lent
to that man who came to the door--quiet, child--dot and carry
child--there, you've done it!--did I say nine nine seven? yes, I said
nine nine seven; the question is, can we try it for a year on nine nine
seven?'

'Of course we can, George,' she cried. But she was prejudiced in Wendy's
favour, and he was really the grander character of the two.

'Remember mumps,' he warned her almost threateningly, and off he went
again. 'Mumps one pound, that is what I have put down, but I daresay it
will be more like thirty shillings--don't speak--measles one five,
German measles half a guinea, makes two fifteen six--don't waggle your
finger--whooping-cough, say fifteen shillings'--and so on it went, and
it added up differently each time; but at last Wendy just got through,
with mumps reduced to twelve six, and the two kinds of measles treated
as one.

There was the same excitement over John, and Michael had even a narrower
squeak; but both were kept, and soon you might have seen the three of
them going in a row to Miss Fulsom's Kindergarten school, accompanied by
their nurse.

Mrs. Darling loved to have everything just so, and Mr. Darling had a
passion for being exactly like his neighbours; so, of course, they had a
nurse. As they were poor, owing to the amount of milk the children
drank, this nurse was a prim Newfoundland dog, called Nana, who had
belonged to no one in particular until the Darlings engaged her. She had
always thought children important, however, and the Darlings had become
acquainted with her in Kensington Gardens, where she spent most of her
spare time peeping into perambulators, and was much hated by careless
nursemaids, whom she followed to their homes and complained of to their
mistresses. She proved to be quite a treasure of a nurse. How thorough
she was at bath-time; and up at any moment of the 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 round your throat. She believed to her
last day in old-fashioned remedies like rhubarb leaf, and made sounds of
contempt over all this new-f