Beck Schaefer, grown a trifle too plump now in the rôle of Mrs. Sam Butler, insisted on holding the struggling Claire. "I never can tell whether I like a baby or not until I've held it--her. 'Scuse. Though this one certainly is a darling. Come to your Aunt Beck, sweetie. Oh, Lottie! Look at her! She put her little hand right up on my cheek! S'e is a tunnin' ol' sin, izzen s'e!" This last addressed directly to the object of her admiration. "Sam and I want to adopt a baby. That's what comes of marrying late. Though I suppose you heard about Celia. Imagine! But he looks just like Orville. Good thing he's a boy. I don't see why you didn't take a boy, while you were about it. Though, after all, when you've brought up a girl you know where she is, but a boy! Well! They leave you and then where are you! They don't even thank you for your trouble. And girls are such fun to dress. Oh, _what_ did you think of Ben Gartz marrying a chorus girl! Didn't you nearly die! I saw her in the Pompeiian Room with him one night after the theatre. She's a common looking little thing and young enough to be his daughter. She was ordering things under glass. Poor Ben. He was awfully sweet on you, Lottie, at one time. What happened, anyway?" Against the doctor's orders and the nurse's advice and manœuverings, Mrs. Payson had insisted on seeing the baby immediately on Lottie's entering the house. They prepared Lottie. "It can't be much worse for her to see you--and the baby--now than not to see you. She's so worked up that we can't do anything with her anyway. But don't argue; and don't oppose her in anything. Lie, if you have to, about sending the baby away." "Away! Oh! no!" "But Lottie, you don't understand how sick she is. Any shock might----" Lottie had scarcely divested herself of hat and wraps when she entered her mother's bedroom, the child in her arms. Mrs. Payson's eyes were on the door--had been from the moment she heard the flurry of homecoming downstairs. As Lottie stood in the doorway a moment the sick woman's eyes dilated. She made as though to sit up. The nurse took the child from Lottie as she bent over to kiss her mother. Then, suddenly, she dropped to her knees at the side of the bed. "Oh, mama, it's so good to be home." She took one of the flaccid hands in her own firm vital grasp. "H'm. Well, that's some good come of your leaving, anyway. You look handsome, Lottie. How've you got your hair done?" "Just as I always had it, mama." "Your face looks fuller, somehow. Let's see the young one." The nurse turned and leaned over the bed. But at this final test of her good nature Claire, travel worn, bewildered, hungry, failed them. She opened wide her mouth, lurched in muscular rebellion, and emitted a series of ear-piercing screams against the world; against this strange person in white who held her; against that which stared at her from the bed.