e'll take the child and
you'll give us a paper or writin' makin' over all your right and title.
How's that?"

Without knowing exactly why he did, Mr. North objected decidedly.

"Do you think we won't take good care of it?" asked Miss Bessy, sharply.

"That is not the question," said North, a little hotly. "In the first
place, the child is not mine to give. It has fallen into my hands as a
trust,--the first hands that received it from its parents. I do not
think it right to allow any other hands to come between theirs and
mine."

Miss Bessy left the window. In another moment she appeared from the
house, and, walking directly towards North, held out a somewhat
substantial hand. "Good!" she said, as she gave his fingers an honest
squeeze. "You ain't so looney after all. Dad, he's right! He shan't
gin it up, but we'll go halves in it, he and me. He'll be father and
I'll be mother 'til death do us part, or the reg'lar family turns up.
Well--what do you say?"

More pleased than he dared confess to himself with the praise of this
common girl, Mr. James North assented. Then would he see the baby? He
would, and Trinidad Joe having already seen the baby, and talked of the
baby, and felt the baby, and indeed had the baby offered to him in
every way during the past night, concluded to give some of his valuable
time to logging, and left them together.

Mr. North was obliged to admit that the baby was thriving. He moreover
listened with polite interest to the statement that the baby's eyes
were hazel, like his own; that it had five teeth; that she was, for a
girl of that probable age, a robust child; and yet Mr. North lingered.
Finally, with his hand on the door-lock, he turned to Bessy and said,--

"May I ask you an odd question, Miss Robinson?"

"Go on."

"Why did you think I was--'looney'?"

The frank Miss Robinson bent her head over the baby.

"Why?"

"Yes, why?"

"Because you WERE looney."

"Oh!"

"But--"

"Yes--"

"You'll get over it."

And under the shallow pretext of getting the baby's food, she retired
to the kitchen, where Mr. North had the supreme satisfaction of seeing
her, as he passed the window, sitting on a chair with her apron over
her head, shaking with laughter.

For the next two or three days he did not visit the Robinsons, but gave
himself up to past memories. On the third day he had--it must be
confessed not without some effort--brought himself into that condition
of patie