"Why, say, she's a cute little tyke," said Henry, and jiggled her chin, and caught the velvet fist. "Claire, huh? That isn't so terribly French." Belle gave a gasp. "Why, Lottie, she's so little! She's just a tiny baby! Almost new. You must be crazy. Mother's too sick to have----" Lottie replaced the flap and captured the waving fist expertly, tucking it back into warmth. "She's not little. She's really large for her age. Those are all my bags, Henry, and things. There's a frightful lot of them. And here's my trunk check. Perhaps you'd better tend to them. Here, I'll take this, and that. Give them to the boy. Perhaps Belle and I had better go ahead in a taxi while you straighten out the mess." She was calm, alert, smiling. Henry thought she looked handsome, and told her so. "War certainly agrees with you, Lottie. Gosh, you look great. Doesn't she, Belle? Darned pretty, if you ask me, Lot." Belle, eyeing Lottie's clear fine skin, and the vital line of her shoulders and back and a certain set of the head, and a look that was at once peaceful and triumphant, nodded in agreement, vaguely puzzled. "I thought you'd be a wreck.... What do you think of Charley?... Oh, well, and now mother. And here you come complicating things still more. How did you happen to do such a crazy thing, Lottie?" "I'll tell you all about it on the way home." Later, in the taxi, the heaving bundle fitting graciously into the hollow of her arm: "Well, you know, after St. Mihiel, when the Germans were retreating and retreating and our boys were advancing, the Germans took with them in their retreat all the young men and young women they could lay their hands on. Prisoners, you know. They meant to use them for work. Well, often, parents were taken from their children. Babies were left alone. When our men got to Thiaucourt--that's a little town of about three hundred--in September, it was a deserted ruined heap of stone. They were right up on the retreat. And there, in what had been a kitchen, without any roof to it, was a baby. They sent her back, of course, to us." "Yes, but Lottie, perhaps the----" "No. The father was killed in the war. They traced the mother. She died in November. I adopted her legally----" "You didn't!" "But I did." "Claire--what?" Lottie looked down at the bundle; squeezed it with a gentle pressure. "Claire Payson, I suppose, now." CHAPTER XVIII The Girls all came to see the baby. They exclaimed and cooed and _ah_'d and _oh_'d. "Of course it's wonderful and all. But it is a big responsibility, Lottie. How in the world did you happen----" "Well, you know, after St. Mihiel, when the Germans were retreating and our boys were advancing----" She was asked to lecture before some of the women's clubs, but declined.