In the silence that followed there was a shriek from Wardo, somewhere back near the servants' quarters, and then such a lusty crying that Lloyd sprang up frightened, and ran to the rescue. She was conscience-smitten for having left him so long to the care of Enoch, Cindy's little grandson, whom she had bribed to amuse him for an hour. It was only because his constant presence and interruptions seemed to bore Leland that she had done it. Wardo did make tyrannical demands on her attention, she had to admit, dearly as she loved the child. But when she found him crying from a bee-sting, and his poor little lip swollen out of all resemblance to a Cupid's bow she felt a twinge of resentment towards Leland. If she hadn't sent Wardo away from her, she thought reproachfully, he wouldn't have been stung, and she wouldn't have sent him if Leland had acted nicer about having him around. He had actually muttered in Mom Beck's hearing that it was "a beastly bore always having that kid poking in."
She had resented it at the time Mom Beck repeated it, but excused it on the ground that he was not used to children, and that Wardo's persistent questions and demands did tax one's patience dreadfully sometimes. But now as he clung to her, sobbing and screaming, she thought reproachfully, "He might at least have come around to find out what was the mattah, when he knows how devoted I am to the poah little thing, even if he didn't take any interest in him himself. I'll keep Wardo with me all the time aftah this, even if it does bo'ah him."
Leading him back to the porch she took him in her lap and quieted him with the promise of a wonderful box of paints which he should have next day, with which to colour all the pretty pictures in all the magazines. And she quite ignored Leland for awhile to punish him, not knowing that he understood her pique and was amused at it, and that he was enjoying the picture she made rocking back and forth in the low chair, with Wardo's golden curls pressed against her shoulder, and the dimpled arms clinging around her neck.
Next day she forgot the paints until it was too late for her to get them, and Betty who was going over to The Beeches and past the store, offered to take Wardo and let him have the pleasure of buying them himself. After they had gone she went down to the porch to wait for Leland. It was almost lesson time. Yesterday's feeling of resentment had entirely passed, and she looked down the avenue expectantly from her seat behind the vines. Any moment he might turn in at the gate. The thought gave her a pleasant thrill of anticipation. As the moments slipped by she opened her book and began repeating the verses marked for her to memorize.