ne will just take care of the baby," suggested Susie's
mother as they unloaded the lunch baskets, "I'll help the other ladies
get dinner ready and you can have lunch just that much sooner."

"Oh, let me, Mrs. McKittrick," cried Tabitha, who had wished all the
morning that she had been in the rig with the McKittrick family so she
might hold the little dimpled, laughing mite, who made friends with
everyone and was worshipped by all the children, but remained unspoiled
in spite of the attentions showered upon him by this admiring court.

"Well, all right, Tabitha. Watch him and see that he doesn't roll down
the bank or put anything in his mouth. He's into everything."

"What's his name?"

"He hasn't any yet. We can't find one pretty enough for him."

"And he is 'most a year old!"

"Yes, he will be a year next month, but he is the first boy in a family
of four girls, and we can't decide what to call him, so he has no name
yet. You might think up some pretty ones to suggest. We've exhausted
everyone else's lists."

She laughed as she spoke, but Tabitha thought she was thoroughly in
earnest, and seizing the baby, she ran away to ponder over the vital
question of pretty names, confident of finding one that would suit the
over-particular parents.

"I'd like to call him Dionysius if he was mine," she confided to
Carrie, who soon joined her in her self-appointed task of nursemaid, for
the two girls were seldom apart; "but--after--that time--well, he might
not like it when he grew up. I am afraid it might be unlucky."

"Frederick is a pretty name," ventured Carrie. "That's papa's."

"Yes, that's not bad, but I reckon Mrs. McKittrick has heard of it
already, for I know lots of people called that. She wants something real
pretty. I know how it is, for my name is so perfectly horrid that
sometimes it seems as if I can't endure it. I wouldn't want to pick out
a name that this darling baby would hate when he grew up. It must be
something _awfully_ nice. How do you think she would like Rosslyn? I
have liked that name ever since I heard it and was always sorry I could
not stay in Ferndale and get acquainted with the boy it belonged to, and
his cousin Rosalie."

"If you had stayed there I never would have known you, Pussy," suggested
Carrie, for Tabitha was her idol and she shuddered when she thought how
lonely it would be if Tabitha should move away now and leave her there.

"That's so; I forgot it just for a minute. I'm sur