their dimpling loveliness, the
painted cherubs on the wall.

It was a delight to see Nellie Mayo in the midst of her children. Hers
were all babies, such dear, amiable, kissable babies, each of whom seemed
personally anxious to prove to every one how much sweetness one small
morsel of humanity could hold. But with five of them, bless me! the house
was one glowing radiance of sunshine, in which the little mother lived and
loved, until they absorbed each other's personality, and it was difficult
to think of one without the others.

Sometimes in a street-car or on the elevated train I have seen women who I
felt convinced had little babies at home. It is because of the peculiar
look they wear, the rapturous mother-look, which has its home in the eyes
during the most helpless period of babyhood--an indescribable look, in
which dreams and prophecy and heaven are mingled. It is the sweetest look
which can come to a woman's face, saying plainly, "Oh, I have such a
secret in my heart! Would that every one knew its rapture with me!" It
wears off sooner or later, but with Nellie Mayo, whether because there
always was a baby, or because each was welcomed with such a world of love,
the look remained until it seemed a part of her face.

Long ago we knew her as an unworldly girl, whose peachblow coloring gave
to her face its chief beauty, although her plaintive blue eyes and smooth
brown hair called forth a certain protective faith in her simplicity and
goodness. Sometimes girlhood is a mysterious chaos of traits, out of which
no one can foretell what sort of cosmos will follow, or whether there will
be a cosmos at all or only intelligent chaos to the end. But this girl
seemed to carry her future in her face. She was a little mother to us all.
It was a tribute to her gentleness and dignity that, although she was a
poor girl among a bevy of rich ones, she was a favorite; unacknowledged
perhaps, but still a favorite. She always stood ready with her
unostentatious help. She was everybody's understudy. Flossy Carleton, as
she was then, fastened herself like a leech upon Nellie's capacity for
aid, and was a likely subject for the exercise of Nellie's swifter brain
and willing feet; for to see any one's unspoken need was to her like a
thrilling cry for help, and was the only thing which could completely draw
her from her shy reserve. The chief reason she was popular was that she
had a faculty of keeping herself in the shadow. You never kne