you want to see him?". Burns inquired of Winifred Chester. He rose.

"Red! What do you mean? Have you got a child here?"

"Come along, all of you, if you like. He won't wake up. He's sleeping
like a top--can't help it, with all that bread and milk inside of him.
Part cream it was, too. I saw Cynthia chucking it in. He'd got her, good
and plenty, in the first five minutes. Bless her susceptible heart! Come
on."

"Talk of susceptible hearts," jeered Macauley as he followed. "There's
the softest one in the county."

"Nobody would ever guess it," murmured Pauline Hempstead.

They tiptoed into the house, across the offices into the big, square
room which was Burns's own. He switched on a hooded reading-light beside
the bed and turned it so that its rays fell on the small occupant.

He lay in spread-eagle, small-child fashion, arms and legs thrown wide,
the black, curly head disdaining the pillow, one fist clutching a
man's riding-crop. In sleep the little face was an exquisite one; the
onlookers might guess what it would be awake.

Burns pointed at the crop, smiling. "That was the nearest approach to
a plaything I could muster to-night. To-morrow the shops will help me
out."

"I'll send over plenty in the morning, Red," whispered Martha Macauley.
Her eyes were suspiciously shiny.

"Did you bring him home just now?" questioned Winifred.

Burns nodded. "I hadn't meant to get him to-night, if I did at all. My
call took me within half a mile. I went over and saw him again. That
settled it."

The small sleeper stirred, sighed. Burns turned off the light in a
twinkling. "He's not used to electricity point blank," he chuckled.

Going down the steps a hand touched his arm. He looked into Ellen
Lessing's upturned face and discovered anew that it was a face to hold
the attention of a man. But there was no coquetry in it. Instead, he
saw a stirred look in eyes which struck him suddenly as singularly like
those of the child he had just shown her, "black, with a fringe around
'em."

"Doctor Burns," she said, "will you give me the very great pleasure of
dressing the boy? I know how to do it."

"Of course, if you want to," he responded gladly. "I hoped you ladies
would look after that."

"Let me do it alone," she urged. "They have their children: it would
only be a task to them. To me--I can't tell you what a delight it would
be."

"I'll take you and Bob to the city in the morning if you'll go."

"It will be a happy