THE BRONZE BABY.
Somebody says that we only really live when we do not know that time is passing. If that be true, Miss Berry lived intensely during the period she passed in the gallery of the Electricity Building that afternoon.
"I wonder how late it is!" she asked herself at last with a start. "The folks'll think I'm lost. I must hurry home directly."
But she sighed as she said it. To "hurry home" from this city of magnificent distances was but a form of words.
"If I could only borrow the wings off 'n some o' those angels!" she murmured as she hastened down the nearest flight of stairs; but doubtful as she was of the lateness of the hour, she could not keep her mind from straying back to the strange scenes in the miniature world she had been watching. Next the incubator had been a little sandy inclosure in the midst of which stood a small curtained house where the young chickens could be brooded at will, and across whose front ran the defiant legend, "Who cares for mother now!"
"I wonder how soon electricity'll take the place o' folks," she mused. "Seems if 't won't take long. Yes, yes," she went on in answer to a faint peeping that came from beneath her wrap, "we'll get home some time to-night," and she hurried faster still, a pleased smile breaking over her face; for Aunt Love was not alone. She had at the present moment one of those emancipated chicks in a pasteboard box pressed to her side.
"I believe I'll take the Internal Road, and then the cars," she said to herself. "There'll be an awful crowd at Sixtieth Street, but I can stand consid'able squeezin'. I know I'm late."
She was late. Not that it mattered. She was to dine in solitary state that evening in any case; but she had meant to reach the house in time to carry the information of Mr. Page's arrival and his plan to meet his friends; and in this she was disappointed. Only Blitzen was left at home to give her his customary boisterous greeting, and she had before her the difficult task of explaining and introducing to him her ball of yellow fluff and impressing its sacredness upon his volatile mind.
Jack was the first to arrive at the rendezvous that evening, and to his satisfaction Mildred was second. She sauntered up to the steps accompanied by a young army officer at whom Jack stared down from his post on the balcony. He had, however, sufficient self-control to swallow his discontent. Mildred had somehow taught him this self-control in the short space of a week, and he managed to walk to meet her with an air of nonchalance suited to that with which she slowly mounted the steps after dismissing her escort.
"Who is the military?" he asked lightly.