Mrs. Foster stood in her hall, waiting to receive her new child. Behind her, lined neatly in the shadows, was the household staff of the Foster residence - Timothy, the gardener, Anna, originally "Annette", the maid - originally French, but now modified to English after an unbearable week (for Mrs. Foster), after the servant's purchase, of clichéd Parisian accents and flighty mannerisms. The cook, marketed under the ludicrous name of "Mrs. Tubbs", but never altered, and a serving man, a wedding gift, years old and the Foster's most ancient mecha retainer, who was, as ever, smartly dressed in a plain white suit. But not tails. After all, tails were vulgar. Only the nouveau riche had serving men with tails, and they called them butlers - an unthinkable faux pas, one that could never possibly happen in the home of such a sophisticate as Mrs. Foster. Mr. Foster's car pulled quietly up to the entrance of the house, and the back door of the low, silver vehicle slid noiselessly back. As Helena's husband, in business suit, wearing his business face, stepped around the bonnet, Helena's child stepped out from the back. She skipped up the steps ahead of Thomas, eyes bright, golden hair neatly plaited and swinging behind the girl, dressed in a pale, blue, nautical sort of costume. Mrs. Foster immediately decided to alter it directly. She entered the hall, and boldly stepped across the gleaming floor towards Helena - standing tall, welcoming, bathed in the afternoon light that streamed through the vast glass entrance doors. "Welcome, Elizabeth!" Helena was benevolent, and sweet, and welcoming, and the child looked up with sweet, unblinking, blue eyes. "Hello, Helena." "I see Thomas has already told you my name." A hint of annoyance to the petulant wife's face, unnoticed by the husband, stripped of his business face, beaming, by the door, behind the child. "Yes." "Well, welcome!" Arms spread wide in motherly embrace, a hug, a watering eye, from she whose eyes could water. The mandatory introductions to the servants. All of them, in their neatly starched uniforms, bowed politely to their young mistress as each, in turn, was referred, by Helena, to her new daughter. The assurance that a bath and turned down bed was ready, if required. The standard scripted hostess talk, from Helena, longing to take her child to the nursery, to a land of white miniature furniture and swirly pink carpet, of tailor made wardrobes and cupboards overflowing with toys positively florescent in their shiny newness. The inevitable whisking away, up the stairs, with Helena smiling, genuinely, truly, for the first time in many months. Thomas watched the pair, his wife, and daughter, as they elegantly and picturesquely mounted the stairs towards the nursery. He was happy. Helena was happy. The whole household, from the master and the mistress to their retinue of servants, beaming with complacent, misunderstanding pride, was happy.