ough to
be named _Minnie_ anyway, even though you had a respectable surname,
but to be _Minnie_ without any surname at all, and _No. 31_ in
addition, seem to me the depths of misery. We found her in the Home
for Friendless Children, and I'll always believe that an angel led us
there! Dad and I went to the city three weeks ago this very Sunday
and walked by the Home. We didn't even know 'twas there--just
stumbled upon it while we were roaming around in search of adventure.
Poor little _31_ was sitting under a tree on the lawn holding a
shingle and singing to it. I'll never forget how she looked. Her
curls were braided up tight, and tied with a shoe-string, and she was
dressed in a hideous blue-checked thing, but even those drawbacks
couldn't spoil her. Dad and I just stopped and stared, and then we
walked up the steps and in at the door.

"'"Whose child is that out there on the lawn?" Dad asked the matron
who greeted us at the office entrance.

"'She was a tall, stern-looking person in a shirtwaist and a high,
starched collar. You just couldn't imagine her holding a baby, or one
cuddling up against her neck. She said _No. 31_ was nobody's child.
She had been left in an old basket on the steps six years ago. You
see, she isn't one of those children you read about with beautifully
embroidered clothes and gold lockets and one thousand dollars in
bills under her pillow. She didn't have any name or notes or requests
for whoever took her to call at the bank for a fortune when she was
twenty-one. She was just wrapped in an old blanket and left there.
But Dad and I don't care!

"'When the matron saw that we were interested, she asked if we didn't
want to borrow _No. 31_ for a few days. She said they sometimes lent
children for two weeks or so. When she said it, she sounded just as
though a child were a typewriter or a vacuum cleaner, sent on ten
days' free trial. I looked at Dad and Dad looked at me, and then he
said, "We'll take her!" It didn't take long for the matron to do up
her few clothes and to get her ready. She was so glad to make the
loan that she hurried. Little No. 31 was so surprised that she didn't
know whether to be happy or not. Perhaps she didn't understand what
it was to be really happy, but she knows now! She's positively
radiant!

"'I can't explain how it seemed when we brought her home. Somehow
'twas as though we'd just begun to