“Yes, I am well,” said the young woman, sitting down abruptly. The child, which was about two years old, gave a crow of delight at sight of the fire, and crept toward it instantly on his hands and knees. Both the baby and the mother seemed to take possession at once of the place. She began to undo and throw back on Miss Susan’s pretty velvet-covered chairs her wet cloak, and taking off her bonnet laid it on the table, on the plans of the new house. The boy, for his part, dragged himself over the great soft rug to the fender, where he sat down triumphant, holding his baby hands to the fire. His cap, which was made like a little night-cap of black stuff, with a border of coarse white lace very full round his face, such as French and Flemish children wear, was a headdress worn in-doors, and out-of-doors and not to be taken off--but he kicked himself free of the shawl in which he had been enveloped on his way to the fender. Augustine stood in her abstract way behind, not noticing much and waiting only to see if anything was wanted of her; while Miss Susan, deeply agitated, and not knowing what to say or do, stood also, dispossessed, looking from the child to the woman, and from the woman to the child. “You have come from Bruges?” she said, rousing herself to talk a little, yet in such a confusion of mind that she did not know what she said. “You have had bad weather, unfortunately. You speak English? My French is so bad that I am glad of that.” “I know ver’ little,” said the stranger. “I have learn all alone, that nobody might know. I have planned it for long time to get a little change. Enfant, tais-toi; he is bad; he is disagreeable; but it is to you he owes his existence, and I have brought him to you.” “You do not mean to give him a bad character, poor little thing,” Miss Susan said with a forced smile. “Take care, take care, baby!” “He will not take care. He likes to play with fire, and he does not understand you,” said the woman, with almost a look of pleasure. Miss Susan seized the child and, drawing him away from the fender, placed him on the rug; and then the house echoed with a lusty cry, that startling cry of childhood which is so appalling to the solitary. Miss Susan, desperate and dismayed, tried what she could to amend her mistake. She took the handsomest book on the table in her agitation and thrust its pictures at him; she essayed to take him on her lap; she rushed to a cabinet and got out some curiosities to amuse him. “Dear, dear! cannot you pacify him?” she said at last. Augustine had turned away and gone out of the room, which was a relief. “He does not care for me,” said the woman with a smile, leaning back in her chair and stretching out her feet to the fire. “Sometimes he will scream only when he catches sight of me. I brought him to you;--his aunt,” she added meaningly, “Madame knows--Gertrude, who lost her baby--can manage him, but not me. He is your child, Madame of the Viteladies. I bring him to you.”