Page:While Caroline Was Growing.djvu/100

 was watching the opal globes sway. "Aunt Edith says before she was married she'd have gone South with a trained nurse after such an experience, but now she has to save the nurse for measles, she s'poses, so she just lies down after lunch."

The Duchess moved restlessly half out of the griffin chair, but sank back again.

"And you have a trained nurse all the time," Caroline mused, stroking the glistering velvet, "isn't that funny? Just so in case you might be sick...." The sunlight peeped and winked on the gold book-edges.

"It amounts to that," the Duchess said, adding very low, "but she is not likely to be needed for measles."

"No," Caroline assented, "you and cousin Richard are pretty old for measles. It's children that have 'em, mostly. I never did, yet. But you don't seem to ever have any children. And such a big house, too! And you're very fond of children, aren't you? It seems so queer that when you like them you can't manage to have any. And people that don't care about them