"Nice, kind Miss Barnes, don't bother me about Isabelle, will you? She bores me to death."
Ann got out of the room somehow. She felt cold shivers down her spine, as if she had touched something revolting. She thought of _her_ mother, and Jinny, the little sister nearest Isabelle's age. She was so homesick for them, she just thought she would die. She went to the nursery where she had left Isabelle, and, as she entered, the child was shaking hands with an imaginary guest, saying in perfect imitation of her mother's manner: "Oh, howdye do, Mrs. Page?"
"Dorothy and Reginald and I are having a bridge party," she explained.
But Ann didn't listen. She just picked Isabelle up in her arms, and hugged her tight, kissing her over and over again.
"You poor baby--you poor little mite!" she said over and over.
But after the first shock of surprise, Isabelle rebelled.
"Don't! Put me down! I don't like to be kissed!" she cried.
"Why don't you like to be kissed?" she demanded.
"Isabelle, have you ever been rocked and sung to and tucked into bed at night?"
Isabelle shook her head, her big eyes fixed on Ann's face, so full of emotion.
"Did you ever have anybody tickle you awake, in the morning, and kiss you until you laughed?"
"It's a shame!" cried Ann. "Why Jinny gets kissed a hundred times a day by everybody."
Isabelle promptly sat down on the floor beside Ann.
"In the morning, after breakfast, she picks up the papers and school books and toys and things the children leave around----"
"My other brothers and sisters. There's Walter and Helen and Tommy and Barbara, but Jinny is our baby. When she gets things picked up she dusts the bottoms of the chairs and the legs of the tables. Then she helps mother make the beds. She can beat up the pillows and tuck the sheets neatly."
"No. Then she studies her letters. She almost knows them. She goes to market with mother, and then she plays in the yard until dinner."
"Then the children troop in to dinner, from school. Such a scramble, such a wrestling, and shouting, and face washing! You ought to hear it."
"But it's _lunch_ at noon," corrected Isabelle.
"Boiled beef and potatoes, bread and butter and jam, and a pudding. Then the older ones tramp off to school again and Jinny takes her nap."