Talking all the way in such an easy, comfortable voice that Christie felt as if she must have heard it before, Mrs. Wilkins led her unexpected guest into a small kitchen, smelling suggestively of soap-suds and warm flat-irons. In the middle of this apartment was a large tub; in the tub a chubby child sat, sucking a sponge and staring calmly at the new-comer with a pair of big blue eyes, while little drops shone in the yellow curls and on the rosy shoulders. “How pretty!” cried Christie, seeing nothing else and stopping short to admire this innocent little Venus rising from the sea. “So she is! Ma’s darlin’ lamb! and ketehin’ her death a cold this blessed minnit. Set right down, my dear, and tuck your wet feet into the oven. I’ll have a dish o’ tea for you in less ’n no time; and while it’s drawin’ I’ll clap Victory Adelaide into her bed.” Christie sank into a shabby but most hospitable old chair, dropped her bonnet on the floor, put her feet in the oven, and, leaning back, watched Mrs. Wilkins wipe the baby as if she had come for that especial purpose. As Rachel predicted, she found herself, at home at once, and presently was startled to hear a laugh from her own lips when several children in red and yellow flannel night-gowns darted like meteors across the open doorway of an adjoining room, with whoops and howls, bursts of laughter, and antics of all sorts. How pleasant it was; that plain room, with no ornaments but the happy faces, no elegance, but cleanliness, no wealth, but hospitality and lots of love. This latter blessing gave the place its charm, for, though Mrs. Wilkins threatened to take her infants’ noses off if they got out of bed again, or “put ’em in the kettle and bile ’em” they evidently knew no fear, but gambolled all the nearer to her for the threat; and she beamed upon them with such maternal tenderness and pride that her homely face grew beautiful in Christie’s eyes. When the baby was bundled up in a blanket and about to be set down before the stove to simmer a trifle before being put to bed, Christie held out her arms, saying with an irresistible longing in her eyes and voice: “Let me hold her! I love babies dearly, and it seems as if it would do me more good than quarts of tea to cuddle her, if she’ll let me.” “There now, that’s real sensible; and mother’s bird’ll set along with you as good as a kitten. Toast her tootsies wal, for she’s croupy, and I have to be extra choice of her.” “How good it feels!” sighed Christie, half devouring the warm and rosy little bunch in her lap, while baby lay back luxuriously, spreading her pink toes to the pleasant warmth and smiling sleepily up in the hungry face that hung over her. Mrs. Wilkins’s quick eyes saw it all, and she said to herself, in the closet, as she cut bread and rattled down a cup and saucer: