It was not a desire for any such alteration which made him acquiesce in the separation.  It was a very grave concern for his wife’s health, and a very sharp realization that, until he could devise some means of increasing his income, he could not afford to engage a more experienced nurse for the new arrival.  He had no ideas of the suffering entailed upon his elder daughter.  He was deceived, as was every one else, by the gentle uncomplainingness with which she waited upon Theodora, for whose existence she regarded herself as entirely to blame.  Had she not, without consulting her parents, applied to high heaven for an increase in live stock, and was not the answer to this application, however inexact, manifestly her responsibility.

“They’re awful good to me,” she pondered.  “They ain’t scolded me a mite, an’ I just know how they must feel about it.  Mamma ain’t had her health ever since that baby come, an’ papa looks worried most to death.  If they’d ‘a’ sent that goat an’ wagon I could ‘a’ took mamma riding.  Ain’t prayers terrible when they go wrong!” And in gratitude for their forbearance she, erstwhile the companion, or at least the audience, of fealty knight and ladies, bowed her small head to the swathed and shapeless feet of heaven’s error and became waiting woman to a flannel bundle.

Only her dreams remained to her.  She could still look forward to the glorious time of “when I’m big.”  She could still unbind her dun-colored hair and shake it in the sun.  She could still quiver with anticipation as she surveyed her brilliant future.  A beautiful prince was coming to woo her.  He would ride to the door and kneel upon the front porch while all his shining retinue filled the front yard and overflowed into the road.  Then she would appear and, since these things were to happen in the days of her maturity, perhaps when she was twelve years old, she would be radiantly beautiful, and her hair would be all goldy gold and curly, and it would trail upon the ground a yard or two behind her as she walked.  And the prince would be transfixed.  And when he was all through being that—­Mary often wondered what it was—­he would arise and sing “Nicolette, the Bright of Brow,” or some other disguised personality, while all his shining retinue would unsling hautboys and lyres and—­and—­mouth organs and play ravishing music.

And when she rode away to be the prince’s bride and to rule his fair lands, her father and her mother should ride with her, all in the sunshine of the days “when I’m big”—­the wonderful days “when I’m big.”

Meanwhile, being but little, she served the flannel bundle even as Sir Beaumanis had served a yet lowlier apprenticeship.  But she still stormed high heaven to rectify its mistake.

“And please, dear God, if you are all out of goats and wagons, send rabbits.  But anyway come and take away this baby.  My mamma ain’t well enough to take care of it an’ I can’t spare the time.  We don’t need babies, but we do need that goat and wagon.”