. "Hello, Beautiful!" she said to the
baby.

Julia dropped to the rug, and smothered the soft whiteness and fragrance
of little Anna in a wild hug.

"She has her good days and her bad days," said Julia, biting ecstatic
little kisses from the top of the downy little head, "and to-day she has
simply been an _angel_! Wait--see if she'll do it! See, Bunny," Julia
caught up a white woolly doll. "Oh, see poor dolly--Mother's going to
put her in the fire!"

"Da!" said Anna agitatedly, and Julia tumbled her in another mad
embrace.

"Isn't that _darling_, not six months old yet?" demanded the mother.
"Here, take her, Aunt Sanna, and see if you ever got hold of anything
nicer than that! Come, baby, give Aunt Sanna a little butterfly kiss!"
And Julia swept the soft little face and unresponsive mouth across the
older woman's face before she deposited the baby in her lap.

"She's like you, Julie," Miss Toland said, extending a ringed finger for
her namesake's amusement.

"Yes, I think she is; every one says so. You see her hair's coming to be
the same ashy yaller as mine. And see the fat sweet little knees, and
don't miss our new slippers with wosettes on 'em!"

"She's really exquisite," Miss Toland said, kissing the tawny little
crown as Julia had done, and watching the deep-lashed blue eyes that
were so much absorbed by the rings. "Watching her, Ju, we'll see just
what sort of a little girl you were."

"Oh, heavens, Aunt Sanna," Julia protested, with a rather sad little
smile, "I was an awful little person with stringy hair, and colds in my
nose, and no hankies! I never had baths, and never had regular meal
hours, or regular diet, for that matter! Anna'll be very different from
what I was."

"Your mother was to blame, Ju," Miss Toland said, gravely shaking her
head.

"Oh, I don't know, perhaps _her_ mother was," Julia suggested. "Yet my
Grandmother Cox is a sweet little old woman," she went on, smiling,
"always afraid we're hungry, and anxious to feed us, tremendously loyal
to us all. I went out there to-day, to take Mama some special little
things for Thanksgiving, and see if their turkey had gotten there, and
so on, and my heart quite ached for Grandma--Mama's very exacting now,
and the girls--my aunt, Mrs. Torney's girls--seemed so apathetic and
dull. The house was very dirty, as it always is, and the halls icy, and
the kitchen hot--I just wanted to pitch in and _clean_! Mama was cross at
me for not bringing Anna,