"Let's pretend he's a cuckoo and push him out," suggested Tom.
"Oh, I didn't mean him to fall far," said Tommy--"just a kind of roll."
"No, dear, I couldn't let you; he would be startled even if he wasn't hurt."
"A train's so stupid," said Tommy, yawning.
"There! I knew he was going to be naughty," she said delightedly. "Soon he'll be pulling the cord, or trying to break the glass, or doing something else he oughtn't to. When he begins like that he's generally very tiresome."
"Hush, Susie," said her mother; "see how good Dick is."
"There, mother!" cried Susie, in the same breath.
Susie flounced away to the farther end of the carriage, and sat looking at the reflection of herself in the glass. She saw a little girl with short blue skirts and a shady hat. When she took off the hat she could see very large, brown eyes and a cross mouth, and the more she looked the crosser it got. There was a fascination about that cross little mouth. It seemed to Susie that she sat there a long while, whilst nobody took any notice of her. In the reflection she could see baby asleep on mother's lap, with mother's hand tucked under his cheek. He looked a darling; but Susie frowned and looked away. Amy was sitting "in mother's pocket"--that was what nurse called it--and Susie felt unreasonably vexed. Dick and Tommy were leaning out of the window buying buns--Tommy was paying. They were at a station, and there were heaps of buns. Susie saw the cross mouth in the reflection quiver and close tightly; the brown eyes blinked--she almost thought the Susie in the reflection was going to cry.
"Nobody cares," she said to herself miserably. "Mother doesn't care; she loves Amy and Alick more than me. The boys hate me; they will eat all the buns, and I shall die of hunger. I wish--"
"Susie," said mother's voice, "the children are stifling me. Come and have tea; we have bought such a lot of buns. Will you help me put baby down in your corner? and you might give him your jacket for a pillow."
Susie could see nothing, but she kept her eyes on the reflection in the window, with a fascinated stare.
"Susie, I _want_ you," said her mother gently.
In a minute Susie had swept the tears away with her sleeve, and had launched herself across the rocking carriage, and flung her arms round her mother's neck.