THE RETURN OF THE SOLDIER
nurseries. It makes all the difference to the little things.
[Jenny kneels and opens the trunk, and begins to take out a child’s clothes.
Oh, the lovely little frocks! Did she make them?
[She kneels too.
Jenny : No.
Margaret : Ah, well, she’d hardly have the time, with this great house to see to. But I don’t care much for baby frocks. The babies themselves are none the happier for them. It’s all show, really. And all these toys! I expect his daddy spoiled him.
Jenny : Chris gave him a rocking-horse . . . it’s up there still.
Margaret : At two years old? But, of course . . . men always give them presents above their age—they’re in such a hurry for them to grow up. We like them to take their time, the loves.
[She rummages.
Where’s his engine? Didn’t he love the puffer trains? But of course he never saw them. You’re so far from the railway station. What a pity! He’d have loved them so. Dick was so happy when I stopped his pram on the railway-bridge on my way back from the shops, and he could sit up and see the puffers going by.
[She pulls out toys.
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