Winnie Steppler had returned from France in December. To her Mrs. Payson appealed for information. "Did you know anything about this crazy notion of Lottie's? Did she say anything to you when you were together there?" "Yes, indeed. I saw her." "Saw who?" "The baby. The French baby. She's awfully cute. Fair.... No, they're not all dark, you know.... Well, now, Mrs. Payson, I wouldn't say that. It's a nice humane thing to do, I think. All those poor little things left fatherless. Lots of Americans are bringing home.... You have? Well, I don't think even that will change her now. She seems to have her mind made up. Maybe when you see it----" "But where'd she get it? Where did she find it? How did she happen----" Winnie Steppler explained. "Well, you know, after St. Mihiel, when the Germans were retreating and our boys were advancing, the Germans took prisoner all the young French men and women--all they could lay hands on. Regular slavery. They took parents from their children, and all. This baby was found in a little town called Thiaucourt, all alone, in a kind of cellar. They took care of her, and sent her back to the American relief." "But the father and mother? They may be alive, looking for her." "The father was killed. That's proved. The mother died----" It was at this point that the accumulation of family eccentricities proved too much for Mrs. Payson. The "faint feeling" mushroomed into a full-sized faint from which they thought she would never recover. Aunt Charlotte had come upon her younger sister seated saggingly in a chair in the living room. Her face was livid. She was breathing stertorously. They put her to bed. For a long time she did not regain consciousness. But almost immediately on doing so she tried to get up. "Well! I'm not staying in bed. What's the matter! What's the matter! Don't you think you can keep me in bed." Followed another attack. The doctor said that a third would probably prove the last. So she stayed in bed now, rebellious still, and indomitable. One could not but admire the will that still burned so bright in the charred ruin of the body. So it was a subdued homecoming that Lottie met. When she stepped off the train at the Twelfth Street station with an unmistakable bundle in her arms, Belle and Henry kissed her across the bundle and said, almost simultaneously, "Mother's been quite sick, Lottie. You can't keep her at the house, you know." "Mother sick? How sick?" They told her. And again, "You see, there can't be a baby in the house." "Oh, yes," said Lottie, not in argument, but almost amusedly, as though it were too ridiculous to argue. "Don't you want to see her?" "Yes," said Belle, nervously. And "W-what's its name?" asked Henry. "I think Claire would be nice, don't you?" Lottie turned back the flap of the downy coverlet and Claire blinked up at them rosily and caught this unguarded opportunity to shoot a wanton fist in the air.