mpled legs, and sets up an indignant roar.

"There now--there! 'A was a pessus!" vociferates the owner of the
streaming ribbons and the scarlet countenance. "And did she tumble out of
her pram, the duck, and wicked Polly never see her? And thank Good
Gracious, not a bruise on her blessed little body-woddy, nor nothing but
the very tiddiest scratch!"

"Which is not your fault, Watkins, I am compelled to say it," pronounces
the Red Umbrella, arriving breathless and decidedly indignant, on the
scene. "The idea of a person of your class being so wrapped up in a rotten
penny novel that you can't even keep your eye upon the darling entrusted
to your charge is too perfectly shameful for words. Baby, don't cry," she
continues, as the repentant Polly appears, bearing the retrieved treasure.
"Come to mummy and kiss her, and tell her all about it, do!"

"I sa-t!" bellows Baby, now keenly alive to the pathos of the situation,
and digging a sandy pink fist into either eye ...

"Don't, then, you obstinate little pig!" returns Red Umbrella, with
maternal asperity. She looks up to the fair vision that stands on high
amongst the poppies, and nods and smiles. "However I am to thank you!...
Such a turn when we missed her!..." She utters these incoherences with a
great deal of eye-play, pressing a small, plump, jewelled hand, with
short, broad fingers, and squat, though elaborately rouged and polished,
nails, upon the bountiful curve of a Parisian corsage. "My heart did a
double flip-flap ... hasn't done thumping yet. Am I pale still, Watkins?"
She appeals to the recreant Watkins, who is busily repacking Baby in her
luxurious perambulator. "I felt to go as white as chalk!"

"Perfect gassly, my lady!" agrees Watkins, and it occurs to Lynette that
the process of blanching must, taking into consideration the artificial
blushes that bloom so thickly upon the pretty, piquante face under the red
umbrella, have been attended with some difficulty.

Everything is round in the coquettish face, shaded by a hat that is an
expensive triumph of Parisian millinery, trimmed with a whole branch of
wistaria in bloom. The big brown eyes are round, so is the cherry-stained
mouth, so is the pert, button nose. The thick, dark eyebrows are like
inky half-moons, in the middle of the little round chin a circular dimple
is cunningly set. Round, pinky-olive shoulders and rounded arms gleam
temptingly through the bodice of heliotrope chiffon. Other roundnesses,