"You thank us beyond our deserts. But are you the minister's wife? I am glad to make your acquaintance"; and she held out her hand, which Mrs. Dlimm seemed glad to take.
At this moment there came the cry of an infant from one of the upper rooms.
"O, there goes my baby," said Mrs. Dlimm; "I thought I heard it before"; and she was about to hasten on.
"May I not go with you and see the baby?" asked Lottie.
What mother ever refused such a request? In a moment Lottie was in the one small room in which, on this portentous occasion, the three younger children were huddled, the others being old enough to take part in what, to them, was the greatest excitement of their lives, thus far.
Lottie looked curiously around, with the quick, appreciative eye by which ladies seem to gather accurately at a glance the effect of a costume and the style and character of an apartment and its occupants. But she politely, and from a certain innate interest, gave such attention to the baby as to win the mother's heart. It was but an ordinary baby, although the fattest and sturdiest member of a rather pinched household; but Lottie wonderingly saw that to the faded mother it was a cherub just from heaven.
Lottie could not understand it. A perfumed baby, in lace and muslin, might be a nice pet if the nurse were always within call; but the sole care of this chubby-cheeked Moloch, that would sacrifice its mother as unconsciously and complacently as the plant absorbs moisture, seemed almost as prosaic and dreadful as being devoured alive.
"Does no one help you take care of that child?" asked she.
"Well, my husband and the elder children help some."
"Haven't you a nurse for all these children?"