be happy without a baby."

Behind her the angels nodded their haloes. "No babies in Heaven.
Couldn't be happy without a baby."

It must have been so much talking that disturbed him; the baby woke up.
As he opened his eyes and saw the Queen of Heaven bending over him, he
smiled. It was his first smile. On the instant the Woman, like all
mothers, became jealous and snatched him back into her own possession.
She liked to believe that no one, not even the Man, could make him as
comfortable as she could. Piling her golden hair upon her knees to make
a pillow for him, she laid him naked on his back and commenced playing
with his toes. If he had not given her his first smile, she would at
least make certain of his second.

She was so taken up with her playing that she did not notice who had
entered. She was the only one who had not noticed. The angels were
cowering against the walls of the cave. The Man had roused and crouched
covering his face with his hands. Only the Virgin stood upright, meek
and fearless, with a look of unconquerable challenge. The Woman was
quite oblivious; she went on with her mother-nonsense. And there stood
God regarding her through a cloud of puzzlement and anger.

The game that she played with the baby-feet she was inventing on the
spur of the moment. Starting with the tiniest toe, she wiggled it.
Then she wiggled the next tiniest, and the next tiniest, and the next
tiniest, till she had come to the biggest of the tiny toes. To each toe
as she wiggled it, she gave a name; when she had wiggled them all she
buried her face in the fat, kicking legs.

"And this is Peedy Peedy," she said as she wiggled the littlest toe.
"And this next babiest is Polly Loody. And this in the middle is Lady
Fissle. And this tall fellow is Lally Vassal. And last we come of the
big, big toe, who's king of them all. His name is Great Ormondon." Then
she dived her lips into the little squirming legs and kissed them as if
she were going to make a meal of them.

She had to do it four times before the baby smiled at her. At first he
only looked serious and astonished. The fifth time his smile broadened
and he gurgled. But the sixth, as she came to "The Great Ormondon," he
burst into a crowing laugh. Never before had a laugh been heard in earth
or Heaven. It was so surprising that the angels ceased from cowering and
the Man uncovered his face to see better.

Then God spoke. His voice was kind and tender like the cooing of