Crushing as it was, this disaster might have been tided over had not a long season of domestic reverses added to the difficulty. For three years there had been no christening party in the tiny parlour back of the nankeen sail, and during that period the bank’s advertisement in the _Progresso_ had appeared without the famous foot line, “Also a baby will be taken to nurse.” The first families of Mulberry had always bid high for Bridget’s offices, and the advent of a new Tomato had never failed to mark an era of prosperity in the bank’s history. Bridget’s vogue was greatest among the Neapolitan mothers, who do not hold with the American dairy wife that it is seldom the biggest kine that yield the richest quarts. But psychological reasons were not lacking for the favour in which the rugged Irish woman was held. In the minds of her patrons was rooted the conviction that for a child of Italy, destined to fight out the battle of life in New York, there could be no better start than the “inflooence” of a nurse of Bridget’s race. The brave figure she presented at these stages! How all Mulberry stood dazzled as she passed, splendid in the time-honoured costume of the Neapolitan _balia_! Tradition demanded a deep-plaited vesture of blue silk or crimson satin, which could be hired of any midwife. Bridget always rejoiced when her employer said crimson satin, for that was her favourite as well as Signor Tomato’s. But there were other points of the outfit that gave her little delight. These were the smoothing and shining with pomatum of her crow-black hair, and the sweetening of it with cologne; a gilded comb in her topknot, and pendent therefrom long broad ribbons to match her gown; rosettes in her ears, silver or pearly beads wound in double strings circling her ample neck; rings galore on her chubby fingers. And the skirt! Short enough to show her insteps, white-stockinged in low-cut shoes. Seen from a distance, moving not without pride across Paradise Park, she resembled a huge macaw or other bird of tropical plumage. [Illustration: Bridget in _balia_ array.] “Troth, it’s the divvil’s own ghinny I am now, and no misthake,” she had told herself more than once when a new engagement found her in _balia_ array. “Phat they’d be sayin’ at home to the loikes iv me I don’ knaw, and may I niver hear. Musha, mother darlint, did y’ iver drame they’d make a daygoe iv yer colleen Biddy? Niver moind, it’s an honest pinny I’m layin’ up agin the rainy day whin there’s not a cint comin’ to the bank.”