Cricket ran off and presently came back, laughing.
“’Liza says she couldn’t dress such little beggars in gentlemen-folkses’ children’s clothes, but finally she let me have these old ones, that mamma had put by to give away. Let me see; where do you begin?”
“I know,” said Zaidie; and by the united efforts of all four, Mosina was presently arrayed.
This process had taken up a great part of the afternoon, and at this moment, Marjorie, who had just returned, came running up-stairs.
“Oh, have mamma and Kenneth come back so early?” she said, catching sight of a tiny figure in a familiar blue dress.
“No, but this is our new baby, and we’re going to adopt it, if its mother doesn’t come for it; and I don’t much believe she will, for it was pretty dirty, and probably she doesn’t care for it much, so Eunice and I are going to keep it,” poured out Cricket in a breath.
Marjorie dropped against the newel-post.
“Adopt it? What, in the name of common sense, are you talking about, Cricket? Where did the atom come from?”
“We found her in the street this morning,” explained Eunice, “and we couldn’t find anybody that belonged to her, so we had to bring her home, Marjorie. We couldn’t leave her to starve, could we? Poor little mite! she was freezing cold.”
Mosina, quite aware that she was under discussion, clung to the dress of her first friend, sucking her thumb, and staring from one to the other with her solemn blue eyes.