“I don’t like the look of that cloud,” she murmured.

“What!  Are they out still?” Samuel inquired, taking off his overcoat.

“Here they are!” cried Constance.  Her features suddenly transfigured, she sprang to the door, pulled it open, and descended the steps.

A perambulator was being rapidly pushed up the slope by a breathless girl.

“Amy,” Constance gently protested, “I told you not to venture far.”

“I hurried all I could, mum, soon as I seed that cloud,” the girl puffed, with the air of one who is seriously thankful to have escaped a great disaster.

Constance dived into the recesses of the perambulator and extricated from its cocoon the centre of the universe, and scrutinized him with quiet passion, and then rushed with him into the house, though not a drop of rain had yet fallen.

“Precious!” exclaimed Amy, in ecstasy, her young virginal eyes following him till he disappeared.  Then she wheeled away the perambulator, which now had no more value nor interest than an egg-shell.  It was necessary to take it right round to the Brougham Street yard entrance, past the front of the closed shop.

Constance sat down on the horsehair sofa and hugged and kissed her prize before removing his bonnet.

“Here’s Daddy!” she said to him, as if imparting strange and rapturous tidings.  “Here’s Daddy come back from hanging up his coat in the passage!  Daddy rubbing his hands!” And then, with a swift transition of voice and features:  “Do look at him, Sam!”

Samuel, preoccupied, stooped forward.  “Oh, you little scoundrel!  Oh, you little scoundrel!” he greeted the baby, advancing his finger towards the baby’s nose.

The baby, who had hitherto maintained a passive indifference to external phenomena, lifted elbows and toes, blew bubbles from his tiny mouth, and stared at the finger with the most ravishing, roguish smile, as though saying:  “I know that great sticking-out limb, and there is a joke about it which no one but me can see, and which is my secret joy that you shall never share.”

“Tea ready?” Samuel asked, resuming his gravity and his ordinary pose.

“You must give the girl time to take her things off,” said Constance.  “We’ll have the table drawn, away from the fire, and baby can lie on his shawl on the hearthrug while we’re having tea.”  Then to the baby, in rapture:  “And play with his toys; all his nice, nice toys!”

“You know Miss Insull is staying for tea?”

Constance, her head bent over the baby, who formed a white patch on her comfortable brown frock, nodded without speaking.