Jenny had just suffered from an attack of croup and Lydia, of course, took the sick child into her own room, as Tom Dolbear would not let Mary do so.
“I must have my night’s rest, or else I can’t do my day’s work,” he said, and his wife agreed with him.
“I know Lydia will take Jenny, won’t you, dear Lydia? Jenny’s that fond of you, too. And there’s no peace for me and Tom like the peace when the childer are along with you. Because then we know they’re put first.”
This evening Jenny would not go to sleep and Lydia had run up and down stairs once or twice. Then she went into a room where Milly and Clara slept—to find them also awake and clamouring for biscuits. Having fed and silenced them, she returned to the pile of mending.
It was a rough, wet night and Mr. Dolbear sat and smoked by the fire, while his wife drowsed on the other side of the hearth. The last baby was asleep in its cradle near her.
Tom told of a successful stroke at Totnes market and was pleased with himself.
“The year’s begun well,” he said. “I ain’t one to count my chickens before they’re hatched, but I never had such lambs in my life and the quality’s as high as the numbers.”
“And no more than you deserve,” said his wife; “rewards come where they are due, and such a man as you did ought to be looked after. Oh, dear—there’s Jenny again, I’m afraid, Lydia.”
Mrs. Trivett departed a third time and presently returned.
“A little bit of temper, I’m afraid. She’s crying out for an orange to suck, and that’s the last thing she can have.”
“I wouldn’t call it temper,” argued Jenny’s mother. “No child of mine have got what you’d call temper, Lydia.”
“That’s where we don’t agree then,” answered her sister-in-law. “I’m fond of Jenny, as you well know; but what she’s got to fight against is temper, in my opinion. We mustn’t spoil her.”
“If that happens, it won’t be me, nor yet her father that does the harm,” declared Mary placidly. “Where children come, you’ll generally find that wisdom is sent to manage them, and I do think that Tom and me know something about how to manage our own.”
“It’s so long ago since you had your daughter to bring up, that very like you’ve forgotten the early stages, Lydia,” suggested Tom.
“And in any case, though God knows I’d never have whispered it to you if you hadn’t said Jenny suffered from temper—in any case, when you look at Medora, you can’t be none too sure your way of upbringing was the best,” murmured Mrs. Dolbear.