where was
a red glow of fire and the shadowy figure of a woman. She did
want to go down.

"You'll mess your frock," said the man, warningly.

"I'll be careful," she answered. "May I come?"

"Ay, come if you like."

She gathered her skirts, lowered her foot to the side of the
boat, and leapt down, laughing. Coal-dust flew up.

The woman came to the door. She was plump and sandy-haired,
young, with an odd, stubby nose.

"Oh, you will make a mess of yourself," she cried,
surprised and laughing with a little wonder.

"I did want to see. Isn't it lovely living on a barge?" asked
Ursula.

"I don't live on one altogether," said the woman
cheerfully.

"She's got her parlour an' her plush suite in Loughborough,"
said her husband with just pride.

Ursula peeped into the cabin, where saucepans were boiling
and some dishes were on the table. It was very hot. Then she
came out again. The man was talking to the baby. It was a
blue-eyed, fresh-faced thing with floss of red-gold hair.

"Is it a boy or a girl?" she asked.

"It's a girl--aren't you a girl, eh?" he shouted at the
infant, shaking his head. Its little face wrinkled up into the
oddest, funniest smile.

"Oh!" cried Ursula. "Oh, the dear! Oh, how nice when she
laughs!"

"She'll laugh hard enough," said the father.

"What is her name?" asked Ursula.

"She hasn't got a name, she's not worth one," said the man.
"Are you, you fag-end o' nothing?" he shouted to the baby. The
baby laughed.

"No we've been that busy, we've never took her to th'
registry office," came the woman's voice. "She was born on th'
boat here."

"But you know what you're going to call her?" asked
Ursula.

"We did think of Gladys Em'ly," said the mother.

"We thought of nowt o' th' sort," said the father.

"Hark at him! What do you want?' cried the mother in
exasperation.

"She'll be called Annabel after th' boat she was born
on."

"She's not, so there," said the mother, viciously defiant

The father sat in humorous malice, grinning.

"Well, you'll see," he said.

And Ursula could tell, by the woman's vibrating exasperation,
that he would never give way.

"They're all nice names," she said. "Call her Gladys Annabel
Emily."

"Nay, that's heavy-laden, if you like," he answered.

"You see!" cried the woman. "He's that pig-headed!"

"And she's so nice, and she laughs, and she hasn't even got a
name," crooned Ursula to the child.

"Let me hold her," she added.

He y