hey look jolly?" said Isobel, peeping over the hedge to watch a
family who were picnicking among the stooks, the father in a
broad-brimmed rush hat, his corduroy trousers tied up with wisps of
straw, wiping his hot forehead on his shirt sleeves; the mother putting
the baby to roll on the corn, while she poured the tea into blue mugs;
and the children, as brown as gypsies, sitting round in a circle eating
slices of bread, and evidently enjoying the fun of the thing.

"Ye-e-s," said Belle, somewhat doubtfully, "I suppose they do. Are you
fond of poor people?"

"I like going with mother when she's district-visiting, because the
women often let me nurse the babies. Some of them are so sweet they'll
come to me and not be shy at all."

"Aren't they rather dirty?"

"No, not most of them. A few are beautifully clean. Mother says she
expects they know which day we're coming, and wash them on purpose."

"Babies are all very well when they're nicely dressed in white frocks
and lace and corals," remarked Belle, "so long as they don't pull your
hair and scratch your face."

"One day," continued Isobel, "we went to the _creche_--that's a place
where poor people's children are taken care of during the day while
their mothers are out working. There were forty little babies in cots
round a large room--_such_ pets; and so happy, not one of them was
crying. The nurse said they generally howl for a day or two after
they're first brought in, and then they get used to it and don't bother
any more. You see it wouldn't do to take up every single baby each time
it began to cry."

"I wish you'd tell that to the Wrights; they give that 'Popsie' of
theirs whatever she shrieks for. She's a nasty, spoilt little thing.
Yesterday she caught hold of my pearl locket, and tugged it so hard she
nearly strangled me, and broke the chain; and the locket fell into a
pool, and I couldn't find it, though I hunted for half an hour. The
nurse only babbled on, 'Poor pet! didn't she get the pretty locket,
then?' I felt so cross I wanted to smack both her and the baby."

"And haven't you found the locket yet?"

"No, and I never shall now; it's been high tide since then."

"What a shame! I should have felt dreadfully angry. I don't like the
Wrights' nurse either. She borrowed my new white basket, and then let
the children have it; and they picked blackberries into it, and stained
it horribly. Why, there's Aggie Wright now, with the Rokebys. What _are_
the