All this was bad enough, but still they were free to talk about their fears, and to cry if they felt inclined, and to keep running to the window or the door. But for poor mother, as you can fancy, it was _much_ worse. There she had to sit smiling and talking as if everything were quite nice and comfortable, not only for the sake of the friends who had come to dine with them, but still more for poor grandfather's sake, who kept growing more and more fidgety and put out, and at the bottom of his heart, though he would not own it even to himself, really frightened and anxious.
"May," he said, speaking across the fireplace to mother. She was talking to the lady beside her, and did not at first hear him. "_May_," said grandfather again, and if the children had been in the room I think his voice would have made them jump, "it is using our friends very badly to keep them waiting so long for dinner. Be so good as to ring again and tell the servants we will _not_ wait any longer."
Poor mother--she looked up--it was all she could do not to burst into tears!
She was half rising from her seat, whispering to the lady beside her (the lady who _did_ know all about it), "I don't know _how_ I shall get through dinner," when--what was it?--no bell had rung, there was no sound that any one else heard, what could it have been that _mother_ heard? I don't know what it was, and I daresay mother herself could not have told, but something she did hear. For she stopped short, and a sort of eager look came into her eyes and a flush into her cheeks. And then the other people in the room seemed to catch the infection, and everybody else looked up to see what was coming, and in the silence a sort of fumbling was heard at the door. It only lasted a second or two, then somehow the handle turned, much more quickly than was usually the case when it was Baby's small hands that were stretching up to reach it--I rather think some one must have been behind to help him--the door opened and--oh such a funny little figure came in! You know who it was of course, but it would be very difficult to tell you exactly what he looked like. He was dressed just as he had been for playing in the garden--a little short thick jacket over his holland blouse, which was no longer very clean; his short scarlet socks and oldest boots on his legs, the bare part of which looked very red and cold, and what had been his best straw hat with part of the brim dangling down, on his curly head. But he seemed quite pleased with himself--that was another of Herr Baby's "ways"; he always did seem quite pleased with himself, best of all, I think, when he had his oldest clothes on--he trotted into the room just as he would have trotted into the garden, even though there were a good many rather finely-dressed ladies and gentlemen sitting round--for his whole mind was filled with the thoughts of two big paper parcels which he carried in his arms. They could not have been as heavy as they were big, or else he could not possibly have carried them! And close at his heels, making him look still funnier, came Minet, very pleased, I am sure, to find herself again in sight of a fire.