ate. Rodney
Harrison was a warm and tangible friend, but this stern and
single-purposed person--"Michael Daragh asked me to talk with you," she
said, sitting down beside the baby. "I'd love to feed her. May I?"

"No!" Ethel swooped down on her child, jealously snatching up the bowl.
"Not when it's my last chance!" She leveled a spoonful and held it to the
widely grinning Billiken. "Come! Gobble--gobble! Eat for poor Muddie!" A
wave of self-pity went visibly over her and she held her head down to
keep Jane from seeing her tears.

"I don't see how you can bear to give her up."

"D'you s'pose I want to?" she snarled it, savagely. Here was maternity,
parenthood, another breed than that of the Teddy-bear's hot, pink
nursery.

Jane picked up the baby's stubby little hand and patted it. "Then, why do
you?"

Ethel's face flamed, but she looked her inquisitor more fully in the eye
than she had done at any time before. "Because--Jerry! _Jerry!_ That's
why."

"Oh ... I see. You care more for him than for your baby?"

Now there came into the childish face a look of shrewd and calculating
wisdom. "I can--I _could_--have other babies, but I couldn't ever have
another--_him_!" Strength here, of a sort, it appeared, in this Weak
Sister.

"It must be very wonderful to care for any one like that," said Jane,
respectfully. The girl looked at her with quick suspicion, but her eyes
were entirely honest. "What is he like, this Jerry person?"

Ethel relaxed a little and the tensest lines smoothed out of her face.
"Well ..." she took her time to it, sorting and choosing her words, "he's
not good-looking, but he looks--_good_."

Jane nodded understandingly. "I know. I know people like that."

"Handsome men ... you can't trust 'em...." A look of wintry reminiscence
came into her eyes for an instant. "I think more of Jerry than--than
anybody, ever. I can't remember my folks. They died when I was just a
little thing. My sister Irene, well, I guess she meant all right, only,
she was so awful proper, always. She was always scared to talk
about--things. I never knew _any_thing till I knew--_every_thing!" A
small shiver went over her at that and she was still for a moment. "But
Jerry!" Her mouth was young and soft again on that word. "He's different
from anything I ever thought a man could be. He's almost like a girl,
some ways. You know, I mean just as nice and comfortable to talk to and
be with." She kept her gaze on Jane's warmly comp