THE   WINDOW
at your door in London positively brown with dirt.
It should be made illegal. A model dairy and a
hospital up here—those two things she would
have liked to do, herself. But how? With all
these children? When they were older, then
perhaps she would have time; when they were all
at school
Oh, but she never wanted James to grow a
day older or Cam either. These two she would
have liked to keep for ever just as they were,
demons of wickedness, angels of delight, never
to see them grow up into long-legged monsters.
Nothing made up for the loss. When she read
just now to James, " and there were numbers of
soldiers with kettle-drums and trumpets ", and
"his eyes darkened, she thought, why should they
grow up, and lose all that? He was the most
gifted, the most sensitive of her children. But all,
she thought, were full of promise. Prue, a perfect
angel with the others, and sometimes now, at
night especially, she took one's breath away with
her beauty. Andrew—even her husband ad-
mitted that his gift for mathematics was extra-
ordinary. And Nancy and Roger, they were
both wild creatures now, scampering about over
the country all day long. As for Rose, her
mouth was too big, but she had a wonderful gift
with her hands. If they had charades, Rose
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