Delia thanked them both gravely, seated herself on the foot of the basket-chair, arranged the General flat across her knees, and, amid the excited silence of her audience, shook the bottle once or twice with the air of an alchemist on the brink of an epoch-making discovery. "Want it? Does Delia's baby want it?" she asked enticingly. The General waved his arms and legs wildly; wreathed in smiles, he opened and shut his mouth in quick alternation, chirping and clucking, as she held it up before him; an ecstatic wriggling pervaded him, and he chuckled unctuously. A moment later only his deep-drawn, nozzling breaths could be heard in the room. "He takes it beautiful," said Delia, in low tones, looking confidentially at the Princess. "I didn't know but being in a strange place might make a difference with him, but he's the best-baby!----" She wiped his mouth when he had finished, and lifting him, still horizontal, approached her hostess. "You can hold him now," she said superbly, "but keep him flat for twenty minutes, please. I'll go and take the bottle down, and get his carriage ready. He'll be good. He'll take a little nap, most likely." She laid him across the rose-colored lap of the Princess, who looked curiously down on him, and offered him her finger tentatively. "I never held one before," she explained. "I--I don't know." ... The General smiled lazily and patted the finger, picking at the great sapphire. "How soft its hands are," said the Princess. "They slip off, they are so smooth! And how good--does it never cry?" This she said half to herself, and Caroline and Miss Honey, knowing there was no need to answer her, came and leaned against her knee unconsciously, and twinkled their fingers at the baby. "Hello, General! Hello!" they cried softly, and the General smiled impartially at them and caressed the lady's finger. The Princess stroked his cheek. "What a perfectly exquisite skin!" she said, and bending over him, kissed him delicately. "How good it smells--how--how different!" she murmured. "I thought they--I thought they didn't." Miss Honey had taken the lady's other hand, and was examining the square ruby with a diamond on either side. "My mother says that's the principal reason to have a baby," she remarked, absorbed in the glittering thing. "You sprinkle 'em all over with violet powder--just like doughnuts with sugar--and kiss 'em. Some people think they get germs that way, but my mother says if she couldn't kiss 'em she wouldn't have 'em!" The Princess bent over the baby again. "It's going to sleep here!" she said, half fearfully, with an inquiring glance at the two. "Oughtn't one to rock it?" Miss Honey shook her head severely. "Not General," she answered, "he won't stand it. My mother tried again and again--could I take that blue ring a minute? I'd be awful careful--but he wouldn't. He sits up and he lies down, but he won't rock."