We have never been annoyed by our children’s presence at any time.  We have never been bothered with them at meals.  We have never had to sit up with them when they could not go to sleep, or watch at their bedsides during the night when they were sick.  Competent nurses—­far more competent than we—­washed their little dirty hands, mended the torn dresses and kissed their wounds to make them well.  And when five o’clock came three dainty little Dresden figures in pink and blue ribbons were brought down to the drawing room to be admired by our guests.  Then, after being paraded, they were carried back to the nursery to resume the even tenor of their independent existences.

No one of us has ever needed the other members of the family.  My wife has never called on either of our daughters to perform any of those trifling intimate services that bring a mother and her children together.  There has always been a maid standing ready to hook up her dress, fetch her book or her hat, or a footman to spring upstairs after the forgotten gloves.  And the girls have never needed their mother—­the governess could read aloud ever so much better, and they always had their own maid to look after their clothes.  When they needed new gowns they simply went downtown and bought them—­and the bill was sent to my office.  Neither of them was ever forced to stay at home that her sister might have some pleasure instead.  No; our wealth has made it possible for each of my children to enjoy every luxury without any sacrifice on another’s part.  They owe nothing to each other, and they really owe nothing to their mother or myself—­except perhaps a monetary obligation.

But there is one person, technically not one of our family, for whom my girls have the deepest and most sincere affection—­that is old Jane, their Irish nurse, who came to them just after they were weaned and stayed with us until the period of maids and governesses arrived.  I paid her twenty-five dollars a month, and for nearly ten years she never let them out of her sight—­crooning over them at night; trudging after them during the daytime; mending their clothes; brushing their teeth; cutting their nails; and teaching them strange Irish legends of the banshee.  When I called her into the library and told her the children were now too old for her and that they must have a governess, the look that came into her face haunted me for days.

“Ye’ll be after taking my darlin’s away from me?” she muttered in a dead tone. “’T will be hard for me!” She stood as if the heart had died within her, and the hundred-dollar bill I shoved into her hand fell to the floor.  Then she turned quickly and hurried out of the room without a sob.  I heard afterward that she cried for a week.

Now I always know when one of their birthdays has arrived by the queer package, addressed in old Jane’s quaint half-printed writing, that always comes.  She has cared for many dozens of children since then, but loves none like my girls, for she came to them in her young womanhood and they were her first charges.