Page:Glimpses of the Moon (Wharton 1922).djvu/310

300 nursery-maid, and it's been a good thing for him to be reminded but the great thing is that with what I've earned he and I can go off to southern Italy and Sicily for three months. You know I know how to manage and, alone with me, Nat will settle down to work: to observing, feeling, soaking things in. It's the only way. Mrs. Melrose wants to take him, to pay all the expenses again—well she shan't. I'll pay them." Her worn cheek flushed with triumph. "And you'll see what wonders will come of it. Only there's the problem of the children. Junie quite agrees that we can't take them. "

Thereupon she had unfolded her idea. If Susy was at a loose end, and hard up, why shouldn't she take charge of the children while their parents were in Italy? For three months at most—Grace could promise it shouldn't be longer. They couldn't pay her much, of course, but at least she would be lodged and fed. "And, you know, it will end by interesting you—I'm sure it will," the mother concluded, her irrepressible hopefulness rising even to this height, while Susy stood before her with a hesitating smile.

Take care of five Fulmers for three months! The prospect cowed her. If there had been only Junie and Geordie, the oldest and youngest of the band, she might have felt less hesitation. But there was Nat, the second in age, whose motor-horn had driven her and Nick out to the hill-side on their fatal day at the Fulmers' and there were