“A case of love at first sight,” haw-hawed one of the irrepressibles across the aisle, and the baby shook her tiny pink-and-white fist at him and cried out, disdainfully: “Go way! I don’t ’ove oo! Oo ain’t pritty!” Everybody laughed except that slight, silent form like a statue of black marble in the front seat, and Norman de Vere asked with a smile: “Won’t you tell me your name, little one?” She beamed upon him with her sunny blue eyes, and answered: “Sweet’art.” There was more laughter from across the aisle. The young man reddened in spite of himself, but persisted: “Yes, I know you are _my_ sweetheart, but what is your other name? What does your mamma call you?” “Nuffin, only des Sweet’art,” she replied, amiably, reaching up and patting his cheek with a warm, sticky little palm, with a lozenge glued to it by its own sweetness. “That is her name for you when you are very good, I suppose, but when you are bad--when you cry and scold your doll, what name does she call you then?” he queried, and she replied, intelligently: “‘Naughty yittle Sweet’art.’” “I give it up,” he said, carelessly; and then she asked, in her innocent, confiding manner: “Don’t oo want me to sing mamma’s yittle song all ’bout me myse’f?” “Yes, please.” She threw back her curly golden head, swelled her soft, white throat, opened her rosebud mouth, and sung, with bird-like sweetness, these words: “Yittle sweet’art, tum an’ tiss me, Des once mo’ before I go; Tell me truly, will you miss me As I wander to and fro? Yet me feel ’e tender p’essing Of oor wosy lips to mine, Wif oor dimple’ hands cawessing, An’ oor snowy arms intwine. “Yittle sweet’art, tum an’ tiss me, We may ne’er meet adain; We may ne’er woam togedder Down ’e dear ole shady lane. Uvver years may bwing us sowow Yat our ’arts but yittle know; But if tare we s’ould not bo’wow, Tum an’ tiss me ’fore I go. “Ah! yittle sweet’art, tum an’ tiss me, Tum an’ whisper sweet an’ low; Tell me yat oor ’art will miss me As I wander to an’ fro.” No words could describe fitly the wonderful, wooing sweetness, the bird-like melody of the little one’s voice as it rose soft and clear above the clatter of the moving train--every word, though uttered in broken baby dialect, distinctly audible to the listeners. The innocent little child, absorbed in the delight of her own performance, appeared as unconscious of them all as some wild-wood bird caroling alone upon its leafy nest, and produced as pure an effect upon her hearers. When she stopped no one moved or spoke for a minute, then the red-faced drummer chuckled: “Sweetheart, you’re an out-and-out prima-donna!” The others were touched and silent. CHAPTER II.