he infant, and the object of his visit. Before he had
finished, the woman, by some feminine trick, had taken the child from
his hands ere he knew it; and when he paused, out of breath, burst into
a fit of laughter. North tried to laugh too, but failed.

When the woman had wiped the tears from a pair of very frank blue eyes,
and hidden two rows of very strong white teeth again, she said:--

"Look yar! You're that looney sort a' chap that lives alone over on
the spit yonder, ain't ye?"

North hastened to admit all that the statement might imply.

"And so ye've had a baby left ye to keep you company? Lordy!" Here she
looked as if dangerously near a relapse, and then added, as if in
explanation of her conduct,--

"When I saw ye paddlin' down here,--you thet ez shy as elk in
summer,--I sez, 'He's sick.' But a baby,--Oh, Lordy!"

For a moment North almost hated her. A woman who, in this pathetic,
perhaps almost tragic, picture saw only a ludicrous image, and that
image himself, was of another race than that he had ever mingled with.
Profoundly indifferent as he had always been to the criticism of his
equals in station, the mischievous laughter of this illiterate woman
jarred upon him worse than his cousin's sarcasm. It was with a little
dignity that he pointed out the fact that at present the child needed
nourishment. "It's very young," he added. "I'm afraid it wants its
natural nourishment."

"Whar is it to get it?" asked the woman.

James North hesitated, and looked around. There should be a baby
somewhere! there MUST be a baby somewhere! "I thought that you," he
stammered, conscious of an awkward coloring,--"I--that is--I--" He
stopped short, for she was already cramming her apron into her mouth,
too late, however, to stop the laugh that overflowed it. When she found
her breath again, she said,--

"Look yar! I don't wonder they said you was looney! I'm Trinidad
Joe's onmarried darter, and the only woman in this house. Any fool
could have told you that. Now, ef you can rig us up a baby out o' them
facts, I'd like to see it done."

Inwardly furious but outwardly polite, James North begged her pardon,
deplored his ignorance, and, with a courtly bow, made a movement to
take the child. But the woman as quickly drew it away.

"Not much," she said, hastily. "What! trust that poor critter to you?
No, sir! Thar's more ways of feeding a baby, young man, than you knows
on, with all your 'nat'ral nourish