ngagement with--"

"With Braun?"

"How did you guess it?" I laughed. "There's no keeping anything from
you."

He was immensely satisfied with his little self. "I know him--that old
rascal," he said slowly. "I say, Olden, just do break that engagement
with Braun." "I oughtn't--really."

"But do--eh? Finish your work here and we'll go off together, us two,
at twelve-thirty, and leave him cooling his heels here when he comes."
He rubbed his hands gleefully.

"But I'm not dressed."

"You'll do for me."

"But not for me. Listen: let me hurry home now and I'll throw Braun
over and be back here to meet you at twelve-thirty."

He pursed up his thin little lips and shook his head. But I slipped
past him in that minute and got out into the street.

"At twelve-thirty," I called back as I hurried off.

I got around the corner in a jiffy. Oh, I could hardly walk, Mag! I
wanted to fly and dance and skip. I wanted to kick up my heels as the
children were doing in the Square, while the organ ground out, Ain't It
a Shame? I actually did a step or two with them, to their delight, and
the first thing I knew I felt a bit of a hand in mine like a cool pink
snowflake and--

Oh, a baby, Mag! A girl-baby more than a year old and less than two
years young; too little to talk; too big not to walk; facing the world
with a winning smile and jabbering things in her soft little lingo,
knowing that every woman she meets will understand.

I did, all right. She was saying to me as she kicked out her soft,
heelless little boot:

"Nancy Olden, I choose you. Nancy Olden, I love you. Nancy Olden, I
dare you not to love me. Nancy Olden, I defy you not to laugh back at
me!"

Where in the world she dropped from, heaven knows. The organ-grinder
picked up the shafts of his wagon and trundled it away. The
piccaninnies melted like magic. But that gay little flirt, about a
year and a half old, just held on to my finger and gabbled--poetry.

I didn't realize just then that she was a lost, strayed or stolen. I
expected every moment some nurse or conceited mamma to appear and drag
her away from me. And I looked down at her--oh, she was just a little
bunch of soft stuff; her face was a giggling dimple, framed in a big
round hat-halo, that had fallen from her chicken-blond head; and her
white dress, with the blue ribbons at the shoulders, was just a little
bit dirty. I like 'em a little bit dirty. Why? Perhaps because I can
im