Pheasant had come downstairs and had drawn up a chair beside his. She was eating a bowl of bread and milk, and the sight of her brown cropped head and childish nape bent over it brought an amused yet tender smile to Piers's lips. He stroked her neck with his strong sunburnt hand, and said: "How you can like that pap beats me."
"I was brought up on it. Besides, it's frightfully good for Mooey."
"Put a little rum in it," advised Nicholas. "You need something to warm you up after that long cold drive. Incidentally it would be good for young Maurice, too. Help to make a Whiteoak and a gentleman of him."
"He's both, already," said Pheasant, sturdily, "and I'll not encourage my offspring in a taste for spirits even at second hand."
Augusta looked upon the redness of the wine in her glass and remarked: "Our old nurse used to put a little wine in the bottom of our shoes when we went out in the wet to prevent our taking a chill. We did not know what it was to wear rubbers, and we never had colds."
"You forget, Augusta," interposed her brother Ernest. "I had severe colds."
Nicholas said: "That was because you were always kept in when it was wet."
"I can remember," went on Ernest, "looking down from the nursery window when I had one of my colds and watching you two—and, of course, Philip—romping on the lawn with the little pet lamb we had. By and by Papa would come along. He would pick up little Phil and ride him on his shoulder. I can see him. He looked so magnificent to me. I can remember how the wood pigeons were always calling then. . . . I used to shout to him and throw kisses down from my window."
He had had only one glass of rum and water, but it took only that to imbue his gentle spirit with sentimental melancholy.
"Yes, I remember," said his brother. "Poor little beggar that you were, you would have a red flannel
