ere young Jemima might keep a capable if impersonal eye
upon their welfare. But Jacqueline, somewhat to her sister's surprise,
had promptly relieved her of all responsibility with regard to the baby,
and was doing her best to relieve the mother of responsibility also.
From the first she regarded the child as her own personal possession,
neglecting in its behalf the various colts and puppies which had
hitherto occupied most of her waking moments.

The girl had a fund of maternal instinct that sat oddly upon her
careless, madcap nature. It was a queer and rather a touching thing to
Philip Benoix to see this young tomboy running about the place with an
infant tucked casually under her arm or across her shoulder; and to
Jemima, for some reason, it was rather a shocking thing.

"She's perfectly possessed by the child, always bathing it or dressing
it or something, just as she used to do with dolls. You know we couldn't
make her give up dolls till a year or two ago. She is actually
persuading Mag to wean it, Philip," complained Jemima, who had no
reserves with her friend, "so that she can keep it in her room at night.
Did you ever hear of such a thing? A squalling infant that would much
rather be with its mother! Isn't it--unseemly of her?"

But Philip did not find it unseemly. "She's growing up, that's all," he
said, looking at his young playmate and pupil with eyes newly observant.

Since his acceptance of the Storm parish, Philip had supplanted all
other tutors to Kate's children, and was "finishing" their education
with an attention to detail not possible in even the best of girls'
finishing schools.

Mag had needed little persuasion to give over the care of her child to
Jacqueline. She was not lacking in animal instinct, and those who
advocated taking the child from her permanently would have found a fury
to deal with. But she had also the ineradicable laziness of the "poor
white," and it took effort to keep the baby up to the standard of Storm
cleanliness. If one of the young ladies chose to take this effort off
her hands, so much the better. Besides, it was Jacqueline who had kissed
her.

Her temporary interest in the novel state of maternity was soon
superseded by an interest still more novel and far more absorbing--the
passion for dress.

Even in her abject poverty, there had been something noticeable about
Mag Henderson, aside from mere prettiness. Her print frocks, while often
ragged and rarely clean, fitte