"Saints and angels!" she exclaimed as the door creaked slightly on its hinges; "where did you come from, you delicious little cherub?"
Well might she exclaim. There was Charley, the little truant, just as he had crept out of bed, looking (as a babe always does when it first wakes) like a delicate morning-glory, whose dewy beauty the first sun's ray will exhale. His little white night-robe hung loosely about him; his large lustrous eyes were full of childish wonder, his dark hair curled in moist rings round his white temples, and his cheek was yet warm with the flush of sleep.
"Where did you come from, you beautiful creature?" said Gertrude, snatching him up, and kissing first his cherry lips, then his bare, dimpled foot, with its pink-tipped toes, then his ivory shoulders; "I never saw any thing half so beautiful—who are you, you little dumb angel?"
Charley only replied by cuddling his little curly head on Gertrude's shoulder, for even infancy's ear may be won by the musical sweetness of a voice, and Gertrude's tones were heart-tones.
"You trusting little innocent," said Gertrude, as her eye moistened, "you are sweet and holy enough for an Infant Saviour. There, sit there now, darling," said she, placing him on the middle of the floor, and scattering a bunch of flowers about him by way of bribe, "sit there now, while I sketch you for one," and she flew to her easel.
"Yah—yah," said a voice at the door, as another model presented itself, in the picturesque turbaned head of Chloe, "yah—yah—you cheat ole nurse dis time, Massa Charley—"
"Oh, don't take him away," said Gertrude; "lend him to me a little while—whose child is it? I almost hoped he belonged to nobody."
"Missis, down stairs," answered Chloe; "I don't know her name; she berry sick, I only came las' night to nurse her, and while I busy here and dere, Massa Charley take hisself off."
"Your mistress is sick?" said Gertrude; "then of course she does not want this little piece of quicksilver squirming round her; I want to make a picture of him like those that you see," said Gertrude, pointing to her sketches about the room;—"he is as handsome as an angel; leave him with me, never fear, I can charm babies like a rattlesnake, and bite them too," she added, touching her lips to Charley's tempting shoulders.
"But my missis—" remonstrated Chloe.