with coloured ribbons,
who showed every eagerness to obey and even anticipate the orders she did
not hesitate to give them. Her eye seemed continually on the alert for
those of Mr. Crewe's guests who were too bashful to come forward, and
discerning them she would send one of her lieutenants forward with
supplies. Sometimes she would go herself to the older people; and once,
perceiving a tired woman holding a baby (so many brought babies, being
unable to leave them), Victoria impulsively left her post and seized the
woman by the arm.

"Do come and sit down," she cried; "there's a chair beside me. And oh,
what a nice baby! Won't you let me hold him?"

"Why, yes, ma'am," said the woman, looking up at Victoria with grateful,
patient eyes, and then with awe at what seemed to her the priceless
embroidery on Victoria's waist, "won't he spoil your dress?"

"Bless him, no," said Victoria, poking her finger into a dimple--for he
was smiling at her. "What if he does?" and forthwith she seized him in
her arms and bore him to the porch, amidst the laughter of those who
beheld her, and sat him down on her knee in front of the lemonade bowl,
the tired mother beside her. "Will a little lemonade hurt him? Just a
very, very little, you know?"

"Why, no, ma'am," said the mother.

"And just a teeny bit of cake," begged Victoria, daintily breaking off a
piece, while the baby gurgled and snatched for it. "Do tell me how old he
is, and how many more you have."

"He's eleven months on the twenty-seventh," said the mother, "and I've
got four more." She sighed, her eyes wandering back to the embroidery.
"What between them and the housework and the butter makin', it hain't
easy. Be you married?"

"No," said Victoria, laughing and blushing a little.

"You'll make a good wife for somebody," said the woman. "I hope you'll
get a good man."

"I hope so, too," said Victoria, blushing still deeper amidst the
laughter, "but there doesn't seem to be much chance of it, and good men
are very scarce."

"I guess you're right," said the mother, soberly. "Not but what my man's
good enough, but he don't seem to get along, somehow. The farm's wore
out, and the mortgage comes around so regular."

"Where do you live?" asked Victoria, suddenly growing serious.

"Fitch's place. 'Tain't very far from the Four Corners, on the Avalon
road."

"And you are Mrs. Fitch?"

"Callate to be," said the mother. "If it ain't askin' too much, I'd like
to know you