"What on earth are you doing?"
She might have known that some day Mamma would come up and find her
putting the children to bed.
She had seven. There was Isabel Batty, and Mrs. Farmer's red-haired baby,
and Mark in the blue frock in the picture when he was four, and Dank in
his white frock and blue sash, and the three very little babies you made
up out of your head. Six o'clock was their bed-time.
"You'd no business to touch those baby-clothes," Mamma said.
The baby-clothes were real. Every evening she took them from the drawer
in the linen cupboard; and when she had sung the children to sleep she
shook out the little frocks and petticoats and folded them in a neat pile
at the foot of the bed.
"I thought you were in the schoolroom learning your lessons?"
"So I was, Mamma. But--you know--six o'clock is their bed-time."
"Oh Mary! you told me you'd given up that silly game."
"So I did. But they won't let me. They don't want me to give them up."
Mamma sat down, as if it was too much for her.
"I hope," she said, "you don't talk to Catty or anybody about it."
"No, Mamma. I couldn't. They're my secret."
"That was all very well when you were a little thing. But a great girl of
twelve--You ought to be ashamed of yourself."
Mamma had gone. She had taken away the baby-clothes. Mary lay face
downwards on her bed.
Shame burned through her body like fire. Hot tears scalded her eyelids.
She thought: "How was I to know you mustn't have babies?" Still, she
couldn't give them all up. She _must_ keep Isabel and the red-haired
baby.
But what would Mr. Ponsonby think of her if he knew?