“Aunt Harriet!” she would say.  “Uncle Phil!  Grandmamma!  What do you suppose my little brother is doing now?  Has he begun to play?  Do Italian babies talk sooner than us, or would he be an English baby born abroad?  Oh, I do long to see him, and be the first to teach him the Ten Commandments and the Catechism.”

The last remark always made Harriet look grave.

“Really,” exclaimed Mrs. Herriton, “Irma is getting too tiresome.  She forgot poor Lilia soon enough.”

“A living brother is more to her than a dead mother,” said Philip dreamily.  “She can knit him socks.”

“I stopped that.  She is bringing him in everywhere.  It is most vexatious.  The other night she asked if she might include him in the people she mentions specially in her prayers.”

“What did you say?”

“Of course I allowed her,” she replied coldly.  “She has a right to mention any one she chooses.  But I was annoyed with her this morning, and I fear that I showed it.”

“And what happened this morning?”

“She asked if she could pray for her ’new father’—­for the Italian!”

“Did you let her?”

“I got up without saying anything.”

“You must have felt just as you did when I wanted to pray for the devil.”

“He is the devil,” cried Harriet.

“No, Harriet; he is too vulgar.”

“I will thank you not to scoff against religion!” was Harriet’s retort.  “Think of that poor baby.  Irma is right to pray for him.  What an entrance into life for an English child!”

“My dear sister, I can reassure you.  Firstly, the beastly baby is Italian.  Secondly, it was promptly christened at Santa Deodata’s, and a powerful combination of saints watch over—­”

“Don’t, dear.  And, Harriet, don’t be so serious—­I mean not so serious when you are with Irma.  She will be worse than ever if she thinks we have something to hide.”

Harriet’s conscience could be quite as tiresome as Philip’s unconventionality.  Mrs. Herriton soon made it easy for her daughter to go for six weeks to the Tirol.  Then she and Philip began to grapple with Irma alone.

Just as they had got things a little quiet the beastly baby sent another picture post-card—­a comic one, not particularly proper.  Irma received it while they were out, and all the trouble began again.

“I cannot think,” said Mrs. Herriton, “what his motive is in sending them.”

Two years before, Philip would have said that the motive was to give pleasure.  Now he, like his mother, tried to think of something sinister and subtle.

“Do you suppose that he guesses the situation—­how anxious we are to hush the scandal up?”

“That is quite possible.  He knows that Irma will worry us about the baby.  Perhaps he hopes that we shall adopt it to quiet her.”

“Hopeful indeed.”

“At the same time he has the chance of corrupting the child’s morals.”  She unlocked a drawer, took out the post-card, and regarded it gravely.  “He entreats her to send the baby one,” was her next remark.