en said so, but Eveley remembered Nathalie and Dan,
angels, too,--but how they shouted and tore through the house. And they
were always exhibiting fresh cuts and bruises, and Dan had insisted on
the confiscation of his curls at four years. If Billy was still wearing
curls at seven, he needed a tonic for he was not regular.

"Eileen," she began very gently, "you--you mustn't expect too many
dimples and curls. Children are angels,--but they are funny, too. They
are always bleeding, you know, and--"

"Bleeding!" gasped Eileen. "Agnes never mentioned bleeding! Do they
always do it?"

"Always. They are always getting themselves smashed and scratched, and
blood runs all over them, and gets matted in their hair, and their hands
are constitutionally dirty, and--they always have at least one finger
totally and irrevocably smashed. Some times it is two fingers, and once
in a while a whole hand, but the average is one finger."

Eileen looked at her friend in a most professional manner.

"I do not know if you are trying to be insulting, or just amusing, but I
saw those children. I was right there for three weeks only two years ago,
and they were always clean, they had curls, and they were certainly not
smashed or I should have noticed it."

"They shout, too, Eileen," Eveley went on wretchedly, determined to
prepare Eileen for the shock that was sure to follow. "They--they just
whoop. And--"

"If you can not be a little pleasanter, dear, suppose you go and wait for
me in the car. I am too nervous. I simply can not stand it."

"I do not want to be unpleasant, and I shall not say another word. I just
wanted to remind you of--of the shouting--and the blood."

"One would think they were savages, Eveley, instead of my own sister's
little babies."

"Here comes the train," cried Eveley, and added in a soft whisper that
Eileen could not hear, "Oh, please, for Eileen's sake, let 'em have
dimples and curls, and don't get 'em smashed before the train stops."

Hand in hand, with eager shining eyes, the girls ran along the platform,
and when the porter put down his stool beneath the steps, the first thing
that appeared was a small dimpled girl with golden curls, and a
flower-like face beneath a flower-laden bonnet.

Eileen leaped upon her, catching her in her arms, and in her rapturous
delight, she did not hear a small brusk voice exclaiming, "Oh, pooh, I
don't need your old stool."

And she did not notice Eveley's gasp,--for Evel