Mrs. Gray rose and went close to him, laying her hand upon his arm. “Captain Ferrers,” she said, earnestly, “you will have your reward. God will bless you for this.” [Picture: Mrs. Gray rose and went close to him, laying her hand upon his arm] “Oh, please don’t, Mrs. Gray,” Bootles stammered. “Really I’d rather you’d chaff me.” Mrs. Gray laughed outright. “Well, you know what my sentiments are, so for the future I will chaff you unmercifully.—Come in,” she added, in a louder tone, as a “tap-tap” sounded on the door. The permission was followed by the entrance of Lacy, who came in with a pleasant “Good—er—morning,” and a soft laugh at the sight of the baby on the sofa. “I—er—thought old Bootles would be here,” he explained. “And besides—I—er—wanted to see the babay. Seems to me, Bootles,” he added, staring with an absurd air of reflective wisdom at the infant, “as if the face is somehow familiar to me. Oh, I don’t mean you. It isn’t a bit like you. But there is a likeness, though I don’t know where to plant it.” “Perhaps it will grow,” suggested Bootles. “Ah! pewraps it will, and pewraps it won’t. The worst of the affair is that it is cwreating a pwrecedent”—not for worlds would he have admitted to his friend that he thought him the fine fellow he had declared him in the mess-room that morning—“and if we are _all_ inundated with babays I wreally don’t know” (plaintively) “what the wregiment will come to.” “Gar—ah—gar—ah!” chuckled the subject of this speech over the gold knob at the top of Lacy’s whip. “Cluck—cluck—cluck!” “Little beggah seems to find it a good joke, any way,” Lacy cried. “I’m a gwreat hand at nursing. Our adjutant’s wife in the White Dwragoons had thwree—all at once. I say, Mrs. Gwray, stick something on it, and I’ll take it out and show it wround.” “Dare you?” she asked. “Dawre I? Just twry. By-the-bye, it’s cold this morning—vewry cold.” Mrs. Gray therefore fetched the child’s white coat and cap and those other white woollen articles, which Bootles now discovered to be leggings, and quickly transformed the little woman into a sort of snowball. The two men watched the operation with intense interest. “_La figlia del wreggimento_,” laughed Lacy. “I declare, Bootles, she’s quite a credit to us. I never saw such a _petite mademoiselle_.” Bootles started. It reminded him who had been jilted by his friend and died for love. He had always called her Mademoiselle Mignon. “Mademoiselle Mignon,” he said, carelessly; “not a bad name for her.” “Vewry good,” returned Lacy, preparing to present arms.