Charley came daily--often twice daily--to see the baby. She was fascinated by her, made herself Claire's slave, insisted on trundling her up and down Prairie Avenue in the smart English pram, though Lottie said she much preferred to have her sleep or take her airing in the back garden undisturbed. Charley and Aunt Charlotte opposed this. Charley said, "Oh, but look how ducky she is in that bonnet! Everybody stops to look at her, and then I brag. Yesterday I told a woman she was mine. I expected her to say, 'And you so young!' but she didn't." Aunt Charlotte said, "This new fad of never talking to babies and never picking 'em up! It makes idiots of them. How can you ever expect them to learn anything? Lie there like wooden images. Or else break their hearts crying, when all they want is a little petting.... Her want her ol' Auntie to p'ay wis her, yes her does, doesn't her?" to the baby. Claire was one of those fair, rose-leaf babies, and possessed, at eight months, of that indefinable thing known as style. She was the kind of baby, Charley said, that looks dressy in a flannel nightgown. "Those French gals," Charley explained. "Chic. That's what she's got. Haven't you, _ma petite? Ma bébé_--or is it _mon bébé_, Lotta? I get so mixed." Charley's was the American college girl's French, verbless, scant, and faltering. She insisted on addressing Claire in it, to that young person's wide-eyed delight. "_Tu est mon chou--ma chou_--say, Lotta, you're a girl that's been around. Do they really call each other cabbages over there?" One of the big bedrooms on the second floor had been cleared and refurnished as a nursery. Here, almost nightly at six o'clock, you found Lottie, Charley, and Aunt Charlotte. The six o'clock bottle was a vital affair. It just preceded sleeping time. It must be taken quietly for some dietetic reason. The three women talked low, in the twilight, watching Claire in her small bed. Claire lay rolling her eyes around at them ecstatically as she pulled at the bottle. She exercised tremendous suction and absorbed the bottle's contents almost magically unless carefully watched. This evening the talk centred on the child, as always. Trivial talk, and yet vital. "She's growing so I'll have to let her hems down again. And some new stockings. The heels of those she has come under the middle of her foot." "Look at her Lotta! She's half asleep. There, now she's awake again and pulling like mad. Swoons off and shows the whites of her eyes and then remembers and goes at it again. Now she's--I never saw such a snoozey old thing. Sleeps something chronic, all day and all night. What good are you, anyway, h'm?" Aunt Charlotte grew reminiscent. "Time you and Belle were babies you wore long dresses--great long trailing bunchy things, and yards and yards of petticoats--flannel and white. It used to take the girl hours to do 'em up. Nowadays, seems the less they put on 'em the healthier they are."