e difference," said Mrs. King; and then, like everybody else, she
asked Mrs. Drayton's question "Whose baby is it?"

There were many answers, mostly to the effect that Lydia was so
scatterbrained--as witness her "party," and her blue-silk dress, and her
broken engagements, etc., etc., that she was perfectly capable of
letting anybody shove a foundling into her arms! Mrs. Drayton's own
answer to her question was that the whole thing looked queer--"not that
I would imply anything against poor Lydia's character, but it looks
_queer_; and if you count back--"

Miss Lydia's reply--for of course the question was asked her as soon as
she and the baby, and the bandbox and the carpetbag got off the stage
one March afternoon--Miss Lydia's answer was brief:

"A friend's."

She did emerge from her secrecy far enough to say to Mrs. Barkley that
she was to receive "an honorarium" for the support of the little
darling. "Of course I won't spend a cent of it on myself," she added,
simply.

"Is it a child of shame?" said Mrs. Barkley, sternly.

Miss Lydia's shocked face and upraised, protesting hands, answered her:
"My baby's parents were married persons! After they--passed on, a friend
of theirs intrusted the child to me."

"When did they die?"

Miss Lydia reflected. "I didn't ask the date."

"Well, considering the child's age, the mother's death couldn't have
been very long ago," Mrs. Barkley said, dryly.

And Miss Lydia said, in a surprised way, as if it had just occurred to
her: "Why, no, of course not! It was an accident," she added.

"For the mother?"

"For both parents," said Miss Sampson, firmly. And that was all Old
Chester got out of her.

"Well," said Mrs. Drayton, "_I_ am always charitable, but uncharitable
persons might wonder. . . . It was last May, you know, that that Rives
man deserted her at the altar."

"Only fool persons would wonder anything like that about Lydia Sampson!"
said Mrs. Barkley, fiercely. . . . But even in Old Chester there were
two or three fools, so for their especial benefit Mrs. Barkley, who had
her own views about Miss Sampson's wisdom in undertaking the care of a
baby, but who would not let that Drayton female speak against her,
spread abroad the information that Miss Lydia's baby's parents, who had
lived out West, had both been killed at the same time in an accident.

"What kind?"

"Carriage, I believe," said Mrs. Barkley; "but they left sufficient
money to support the child. S