"Because you wouldn't let me bathe you," said Meg dismally. Her voice
broke. She really was most upset. As it happened, she did the only thing
that would have appealed to little Fay.
"Don't cly, deah Med," she said sweetly. "You sall dly me."
And Meg, student of so many manuals, humbly and gratefully accepted the
task.
It had taken exactly an hour and a quarter to get Fay ready for bed.
Indian Ayah used to do it in fifteen minutes.
Consistently and cheerfully gracious, Fay permitted Meg to carry her to
her cot and tuck her in.
Meg lit the night-light and switched off the light, when a melancholy
voice began to chant:
"_My_ Ayah always dave me a choccly."
Now there was no infant in London less deserving of a choccly at that
moment than troublesome little Fay. "Nursery Hygiene" proclaimed the
undeniable fact that sweetmeats last thing at night are most injurious.
Duty and Discipline and Self-Control should all have pointed out the
evil of any indulgence of the sort. Yet Meg, with all her theories quite
fresh and new, and with this excellent opportunity of putting them into
practice, extracted a choccly from a box on the chest of drawers; and
when the voice, "like broken music," announced for the third time, "_My_
Ayah always dave me a choccly," "So will this Ayah," said Meg, and
popped it into the mouth whence the voice issued.
There was a satisfied smacking and munching for a space, when the voice
took up the tale:
"Once Tony had thlee----"
But what it was Tony once had "thlee" of Meg was not to know that night,
for naughty little Fay fell fast asleep.
* * * * *
For a week Tony bathed his sister every night. Neither Jan nor Meg felt
equal to facing and going through again the terrors of that first night
without Ayah. Little Fay was quite good--she permitted Meg to undress
her and even to put her in the little bath, but once there she always
said firmly, "Tony wass me," and Tony did.
Then he burned his hand.
He was never openly and obstreperously disobedient like little Fay. On
the whole he preferred a quiet life free from contention. But very early
in their acquaintance Jan had discovered that what Tony determined upon
that he did, and in this he resembled her so strongly that she felt a
secret sympathy with him, even when such tenacity of purpose was most
inconvenient.
He liked to find things out for himself, and no amount of warning or
prohibition could prevent his investigations. Thus it came about that,
carefully guarded as the children were from any contact with the fires,
Tony simply didn't believe what was told him of their dangers.
Fires were new to him. They were so pretty, with their dancing flames,
it seemed a pity to shut them in behind those latticed guards Auntie Jan
was so fond of. Never did Tony see the fires without those tiresome
guards and he wanted to very much.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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