and Dora, because the baby was her idea.

"We've found something," Dora said, "and we want to know whether we may
keep it."

The rest of us said nothing. We were not so very extra anxious to keep
it after we had heard how much and how long it could howl. Even Noel had
said he had no idea a baby could yell like it. Dora said it only cried
because it was sleepy, but we reflected that it would certainly be
sleepy once a day, if not oftener.

"What is it?" said Albert's uncle. "Let's see this treasure-trove. Is it
a wild beast?"

"Come and see," said Dora, and we led him to our room.

Alice turned down the pink flannelette petticoat with silly pride, and
showed the youthful heir fatly and pinkly sleeping.

"A baby!" said Albert's uncle. "_The_ Baby! Oh, my cat's alive!"

That is an expression which he uses to express despair unmixed with
anger.

"Where did you?--but that doesn't matter. We'll talk of this later."

He rushed from the room, and in a moment or two we saw him mount his
bicycle and ride off.

Quite shortly he returned with the distracted horseman.

It was _his_ baby, and not titled at all. The horseman and his wife were
the lodgers at the mill. The nursemaid was a girl from the village.

She _said_ she only left the Baby five minutes while she went to speak
to her sweetheart, who was gardener at the Red House. But _we_ knew she
left it over an hour, and nearly two.

I never saw any one so pleased as the distracted horseman.

When we were asked we explained about having thought the Baby was the
prey of gypsies, and the distracted horseman stood hugging the Baby, and
actually thanked us.

But when he had gone we had a brief lecture on minding our own business.
But Dora still thinks she was right. As for Oswald and most of the
others, they agreed that they would rather mind their own business all
their lives than mind a baby for a single hour.

If you have never had to do with a baby in the frenzied throes of
sleepiness you can have no idea what its screams are like.

If you have been through such a scene you will understand how we
managed to bear up under having no baby to adopt.

Oswald insisted on having the whole thing written in the Golden Deed
book. Of course his share could not be put in without telling about
Dora's generous adopting of the forlorn infant outcast, and Oswald could
not and cannot forget that he was the one who did get that baby to
sleep.

What a time Mr. and Mrs. Dist