Toland had flashed
about on many visits to her girl friends admiring, exclaiming, rejoicing
in their joys, and now, as a mother of growing girls and boys, there
still hung between her and real life the curtain of her unquenchable
optimism. She loved babies, and they had come very fast, and been cared
for by splendid maids, and displayed in effective juxtaposition to their
gay little mother for the benefit of admiring friends, when opportunity
offered. And if, in the early days of her married life, there had ever
been troublous waters to cross, Sally Toland had breasted them
gallantly, her fixed, confident smile never wavering.
At first Doctor Toland had felt something vaguely amiss in this
persistent attitude of radiant and romantic surety. "Are you sure the
boy understands?" "D'ye think Bab isn't old enough to know that you're
just making that up?" he would ask uneasily, when a question of
disciplining Ned or consoling Barbara arose. But Mrs. Toland always was
sure of her course, and would dimple at him warningly: "Of course it's
all right, Daddykins, and we're all going to be happy, and not even
think of our naughty old troubles any more!"
So the doctor gave her her way, and settled back to enjoy his children
and his wife, his yacht and his roses; growing richer and more famous,
more genial and perhaps a little more mildly cynical as time went on.
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