‘Yes, ma’am, she did,’ says Fanny. ‘Robert, Amy’s table.’ ‘Yes, but keep cool, memsahib.’ ‘I suppose, ma’am, I’m to take my orders from you now,’ the hard-hearted Fanny inquires. ‘I suppose so,’ Alice says, so timidly that Fanny is encouraged to be bold. ‘The poor miss, it will be a bit trying for her just at first.’ Alice is taken aback. ‘I hadn’t thought of that, Robert.’ Robert thinks it time to take command. ‘Fiddle-de-dee. Bring your mistress a cup of tea, my girl.’ ‘Yes, sir. Here is the tea-caddy, ma’am. I can’t take the responsibility; but this is the key.’ ‘Robert,’ Alice says falteringly. ‘I daren’t break into Amy’s caddy. She mightn’t like it. I can wait.’ ‘Rubbish. Give me the key.’ Even Fanny cannot but admire the Colonel as he breaks into the caddy. ‘That makes me feel I’m master of my own house already. Don’t stare at me, girl, as if I was a housebreaker.’ ‘I feel that is just what we both are,’ his wife says; but as soon as they are alone she cries, ‘It’s home, home! India done, home begun.’ He is as glad as she. ‘Home, memsahib. And we’ve never had a real one before. Thank God, I’m able to give it you at last.’ She darts impulsively from one object in the room to another. ‘Look, these pictures. I’m sure they are all Amy’s work. They are splendid.’ With perhaps a moment’s misgiving, ‘Aren’t they?’ ‘_I_ couldn’t have done them,’ the Colonel says guardedly. He considers the hand-painted curtains. ‘She seems to have stopped everything in the middle. Still I couldn’t have done them. I expect this is what is called a cosy corner.’ But Alice has found something more precious. She utters little cries of rapture. ‘What is it?’ ‘Oh, Robert, a baby’s shoe. My baby.’ She presses it to her as if it were a dove. Then she is appalled. ‘Robert, if I had met my baby coming along the street I shouldn’t have known her from other people’s babies.’ ‘Yes, you would,’ the Colonel says hurriedly. ‘Don’t break down _now_. Just think, Alice; after to-day, you will know your baby anywhere.’ ‘Oh joy, joy, joy.’ Then the expression of her face changes to ‘Oh woe, woe, woe.’ ‘What is it now, Alice?’ ‘Perhaps she won’t like me.’ ‘Impossible.’ ‘Perhaps none of them will like me.’ ‘My dear Alice, children always love their mother, whether they see much of her or not. It’s an instinct.’ ‘Who told you that?’ ‘You goose. It was yourself.’ ‘I’ve lost faith in it.’ He thinks it wise to sound a warning note. ‘Of course you must give them a little time.’ ‘Robert, Robert. Not another minute. That’s not the way people ever love me. They mustn’t think me over first or anything of that sort. If they do I’m lost; they must love me at once.’ ‘A good many have done that,’ Robert says, surveying her quizzically as if she were one of Amy’s incompleted works. ‘You are not implying, Robert, that I ever--. If I ever did I always told you about it afterwards, didn’t I? And I _certainly_ never did it until I was sure you were comfortable.’