"
"I give my kisses in the dark," he laughed, as he returned to where she
was sitting. And this was in a sense true; for once when he happened to
be alone for an instant with the baby, he had clasped it and kissed it in
a sort of delirious agony.
"You never had it in the _Times_, you know!"
"Never what?"
"Never announced its birth in the _Times_. Did you forget it?"
"It must have been very stupid of me," he remarked. "Never mind, Maude;
he won't grow the less for the omission. When are you coming downstairs?"
"Mamma is in a rage about it; she says such neglect ought to be punished;
and she knows you have done it on purpose."
"She is always in a rage with me, no matter what I do," returned Val,
good-humouredly. "She hoped to be here at this time, and sway us all--you
and me and the baby; and I stopped it. Ho, ho! young sir!"
The baby had wakened with a cry, and a watchful attendant came gliding
in at the sound. Lord Hartledon left the room and went straight down to
the Temple to Mr. Carr's chambers. He found him in all the bustle of
departure from town. A cab stood at the foot of the stairs, and Mr.
Carr's laundress, a queer old body with an inverted black bonnet, was
handing the cabman a parcel of books.
"A minute more and you'd have been too late," observed Mr. Carr, as Lord
Hartledon met him on the stairs, a coat on his arm.
"I thought you did not start till to-morrow.
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