He forgot him again as he drew near the nursery, and for a long while after he reached it. He found the infant and the dog lying as he had left them. The only sign that either had moved was the strange cleanness of the tiny gray face which Clare had not ventured to wash. It gave indubitable evidence that the dog had been licking it more than a little--probably every few minutes since he was left curate in charge. And now Clare did with deliberation a thing for which his sensitive conscience not unfrequently reproached him afterward. His defence was, that he had hurt nobody, and had kept baby alive by it. Having in his mind revolved the matter many a time that day, he got some sticks together from the garden, and with one of the precious matches lighted a small fire of coals that were not his own, and for which he could merely hope one day to restore amends. But baby! Baby was more than coals! He filled a rusty kettle with water, and while it was growing hot on the fire, such was his fear lest the smoke should betray them, that he ran out every other minute to see how much was coming from the chimney. While the fire was busy heating the water, he was busier preparing a bottle for baby--making a hole through the cork of a phial, putting the broken stem of a clean tobacco pipe he had found in the street through the hole, tying a small lump of cotton wool over the end of the pipe-stem, and covering that with a piece of his pocket-handkerchief, carefully washed with the brown Windsor soap, his mother’s last present. For the day held yet another gladness: in looking for a kettle he had found the soap--which probably the rat had carried away and hidden before finding baby. Through the pipe-stem and the wool and the handkerchief he could without difficulty draw water, and hoped therefore baby would succeed in drawing her supper. As soon as the water was warm he mixed some with the milk, but not so much this time, and put the mixture in the bottle. To his delight, the baby sucked it up splendidly. The bottle, thought out between the heavy linen and the hard street, was a success! Labour is not unfriendly to thought, as the annals of weaving and shoe-making witness.