We were both kneeling beside the child, who was still shouting blue murders. Letitia lifted it up and held it upon her lap. I don't know what I did. I fancy I stroked a head--but I don't know whether it was Letitia's or the child's. To add to the complexity of the situation the front-door bell rang, and I was obliged, in this cookless emergency, to go to the door. Mrs. Archer had called to know what was the matter, and to ask if she could be of any assistance. She followed me into the drawing-room, and, as well as I could, I explained the case. Letitia, herself, was almost hysterical and was unable to greet the newcomer, or to introduce me formally to her sister victim in the Potzenheimer incident. "There's nothing at all the matter with the child," declared Mrs. Archer authoritatively, after a cursory examination. "It's just fractious, Mrs. Fairfax. See--how all the time, it is pointing to that cabinet with the little Indian ivory ornaments in it. It is merely crying for the ornaments. Just try it. I bet that if you open that cabinet all this agony will cease." For a moment I thought our neighbor was joking. The obstreperous lamentations, the blood-curdling howls, the violent convulsions of distress could only have proceeded from dire physical anguish. Letitia, upon whose forehead the beads of perspiration stood in horrid salience, put the child down, and in a frenzied manner rushed to the little mahogany inlaid cabinet with the glass doors. The key was in the lock and she turned it quickly. The door flew open, revealing a little ivory doll, a wheel-barrow, a pagoda, a horse, a chess-table, a group of animals, three Indian gentlemen in summer garb, and a whole stand of pretty little Indian treasures that an uncle of mine had once bought in Calcutta. The screams of the child suddenly ceased. The flux of tears was instantly stayed. The wild moans no longer rent the atmosphere. It got up on its feet, in the twinkling of a double bedpost, as it were, and with a whoop of joy, scampered to the ivory collection. "Ga-ga!" it cried. "Ga-ga!" "Oh, Mrs. Archer!" almost sobbed Letitia in an ecstasy of gratitude--and to my horror she kissed the stranger on both cheeks (and she had never been introduced)--"you've saved us--you've saved us! Oh, I thought it was dying--that perhaps the candy had poisoned it--and that when cook returned, all we should have to hand her would be a corpse." "A very badly brought up child, Mrs. Fairfax," was Mrs. Archer's solemn comment. "What it really needed was a good spanking." "Oh, no," exclaimed Letitia, "never. Corporal punishment is so detestable, and so uncivilized. And for a mere baby! The mother slapped it while we were at dinner, and I gave her a piece of my mind."