thing about
it--sleeves act bewitched. They seem bound to hang together and be all
one kind or all the other, anything but pairs."

"Why don't you rest a little, and take baby outdoors in her new coat?"
Celia suggested. "Sewing is such wearisome work, if one isn't used to
it."

So Charlotte and her charge gladly went out. A neighbour had lent an old
baby sled, and in it Miss Ellen Donohue, snuggled to the chin in the
warmest of garments and wrappings, took her first airing since the
night, a week before, when she had been brought home in Doctor
Churchill's arms.

She was a shy but happy baby, and had already won all hearts. Nobody was
willing to begin the steps necessary to place her in any of the
institutions designed for cases like hers. Charlotte, indeed, would not
hear of it; and even the practical John Lansing, who had learned to
figure the family finances pretty closely since he himself had become
the wage-earner, succumbed to the touch of baby fingers on his face and
the glance of a pair of eyes like forget-me-nots.

As for Captain Rayburn, he was the baby's devoted slave at all times,
his most jealous rival being Dr. Andrew Churchill, who was constantly
inventing excuses for coming in for a frolic with Baby Ellen.

"If the doctor could look in on us now," observed Mrs. Fields, suddenly,
in the middle of the afternoon, when Charlotte was again bravely trying
to distinguish herself at tasks in which she was by no means an adept,
"he'd be put out with me for having this party a day when he was away.
He sets great store by anything that looks like a lot of people at
home."

"Is he one of a large family?" Celia asked.

"He was two years ago. Since then he's lost a brother and a sister and
his mother. His father died five years ago. He has a married brother in
Japan, and an unmarried one in South Africa. There ain't anybody in the
old home now. It broke up when his mother died, two years ago. He hasn't
got over that--not a bit. She was going to come and live with him here.
It was a town where she used to visit a good deal, and since he couldn't
settle near the old home, because it wasn't a good field for young
doctors, she was willing to come here with him. That's why he's here
now, though I suppose it don't begin to be as advantageous a place for
him as it would be in the city itself. He thought a terrible lot of his
mother, Andy did. Seems as if he wanted to please her now as much as
ever. And he has some p