“My dear sister, I can reassure you. Firstly, the beastly baby is Italian. Secondly, it was promptly christened at Santa Deodata’s, and a powerful combination of saints watch over--” “Don’t, dear. And, Harriet, don’t be so serious--I mean not so serious when you are with Irma. She will be worse than ever if she thinks we have something to hide.” Harriet’s conscience could be quite as tiresome as Philip’s unconventionality. Mrs. Herriton soon made it easy for her daughter to go for six weeks to the Tirol. Then she and Philip began to grapple with Irma alone. Just as they had got things a little quiet the beastly baby sent another picture post-card--a comic one, not particularly proper. Irma received it while they were out, and all the trouble began again. “I cannot think,” said Mrs. Herriton, “what his motive is in sending them.” Two years before, Philip would have said that the motive was to give pleasure. Now he, like his mother, tried to think of something sinister and subtle. “Do you suppose that he guesses the situation--how anxious we are to hush the scandal up?” “That is quite possible. He knows that Irma will worry us about the baby. Perhaps he hopes that we shall adopt it to quiet her.” “Hopeful indeed.” “At the same time he has the chance of corrupting the child’s morals.” She unlocked a drawer, took out the post-card, and regarded it gravely. “He entreats her to send the baby one,” was her next remark. “She might do it too!” “I told her not to; but we must watch her carefully, without, of course, appearing to be suspicious.” Philip was getting to enjoy his mother’s diplomacy. He did not think of his own morals and behaviour any more. “Who’s to watch her at school, though? She may bubble out any moment.” “We can but trust to our influence,” said Mrs. Herriton. Irma did bubble out, that very day. She was proof against a single post-card, not against two. A new little brother is a valuable sentimental asset to a school-girl, and her school was then passing through an acute phase of baby-worship. Happy the girl who had her quiver full of them, who kissed them when she left home in the morning, who had the right to extricate them from mail-carts in the interval, who dangled them at tea ere they retired to rest! That one might sing the unwritten song of Miriam, blessed above all school-girls, who was allowed to hide her baby brother in a squashy place, where none but herself could find him! How could Irma keep silent when pretentious girls spoke of baby cousins and baby visitors--she who had a baby brother, who wrote her post-cards through his dear papa? She had promised not to tell about him--she knew not why--and she told. And one girl told another, and one girl told her mother, and the thing was out.