onder if Ranny's
mother, in her transports, called it "Little Rose," and "Honeypot," and
"Fairy Flower"; when all that Ranny said was, "It's a mercy it's got
hair."

CHAPTER XVI

Just at first the miracle of the Baby drew a crowd of pilgrims from
Wandsworth to Acacia Avenue. Granville had become a shrine.

People Ransome hardly knew and didn't care for, friends of his mother
and of his Aunt Randall, came over of a Sunday afternoon to see the
Baby. And Wauchope and Buist and Tyser of the Polytechnic came; and old
Wauchope got excited and clapped Ranny on the back and said: "Go it,
Granville! Steady does it. Here's to you and many more of them." And
Booty brought Maudie Hollis, who was not too proud and too beautiful to
go down on her knees before the Baby, while young Fred stood aloof in
awe, and grew sanguine to the roots of the hair that rose, tipping his
forehead like a monumental flame.

As for the Humming-bird, he was amazing. He insisted on the Baby being
christened in Wandsworth Parish Church (marvelous, he was, throughout
the ceremony); and he actually appeared at Granville afterward with the
christening party.

* * * * *

That Sunday afternoon Ransome saw Winny Dymond for the first time since
his marriage. He saw her, he could swear that he saw her, standing with
Maudie Hollis in a seat near the door. He was certainly aware of a
little figure in a long dark coat, and of a face startlingly like
Winny's, and of eyes that could only have been hers, profound and
serious eyes, fixed upon the Baby. But when he looked for her afterward
as the christening party passed out of the church, led by Mrs. Randall
carrying the Baby, Winny was nowhere to be seen. No doubt the
christening party scared her.

He thought of Winny several times that week. He wondered what she had
been doing with herself all those months, and why it was she hadn't come
to see them.

And the very next Saturday, as Ransome, on his return from Woolridge's,
was wheeling his bicycle with difficulty through the little gate, the
door of Granville opened, and Winny came out.

Ransome was so surprised that he let the bicycle go, and it went down
with a horrid clatter, hitting him a malicious blow on the ankle as it
fell. He was so surprised that, instead of saying what a man naturally
would say in the circumstances, he said, "Winky!"

It would have been like her either to have laughed at his clumsiness or
to