"
Only wooden toys were allowed. This severe training proved so effective
that when a doll dressed in a violent pink silk dress was given to Edy,
she said it was "vulgar"!
By that time she had found a tongue, but until she was two years old she
never spoke a word, though she seemed to notice everything with her
grave dark eyes. We were out driving when I heard her voice for the
first time:
"There's some more."
She spoke quite distinctly. It was almost uncanny.
"More what?" I asked in a trembling voice, afraid that having delivered
herself once, she might lapse into dumbness.
"Birds!"
The nursemaid, Essie, described Edy tersely as "a piece," while Teddy,
who was adored by every one because he was fat and fair and
angelic-looking, she called "the feather of England."
"The feather of England" was considered by his sister a great coward.
She used to hit him on the head with a wooden spoon for crying, and
exhort him, when he said, "Master Teddy afraid of the dark," to be a
_woman_!
I feel that if I go maundering on much longer about my children, some
one will exclaim with a witty and delightful author when he saw "Peter
Pan" for the seventh time: "Oh, for an hour of Herod!" When I think of
little Edy bringing me in minute branches of flowers all the morning,
with the reassuring intelligence that "there are lots more," I could
cry.
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