Mrs. O'Malligan, big, beaming and red, smiled a moist but hearty welcome from over her tubs toward the little figure in the faded gingham standing shyly in the open doorway. "An' it's proud to see ye I am, me Angel," she declared, "though there's never a childer in call to be playin' wid ye."
But the Angel, nothing daunted, smiled back in turn, and climbed into a chair, and the two forthwith fell into friendly conversation, though it is doubtful if either understood one-half of what the other was talking about.
Presently Mrs. O'Malligan, with many apologies, went out into the back court to hang out the last of the family wash, and on her return, stopping short in the doorway, her jolly red face spread into a responsive smile. "The saints presarve us," she cried, "would ye look at the child?" for in the tub of blue rinsing water sat the gleeful Angel, water trickling from her yellow hair and from every stitch of clothing, while her evident enjoyment of the cool situation found a response in Mrs. O'Malligan's kind and indulgent heart.
"Angel take a baf," was the smiling though superfluous explanation which came from the infant Undine.
"An' it's right ye are," laughed Mrs. O'Malligan, "an' sure I'll be afther givin' ye a rale wan meself," and filling an empty tub with clean water, the brisk lady soon had the baby stripped to her firm, white skin and standing in the tub.
And what with the splashings of the naughty feet, and the wicked tumbles into the soap-suds every time the mischievous little body was rinsed, and Mrs. O'Malligan's "Whist, be aisy," and "It's a tormentin' darlint ye are," they heard nothing of the knocks at the door or the calls, nor knew that Miss Bonkowski, in street dress and hat, had entered, until she stood beside them with an armful of clean clothes.
"Was there ever such luck," she cried excitedly, "to find her all washed and just ready! Mary said she was here, and so I just brought her clean clothes down with me to save a trip back upstairs. Wipe her quickly, please," and with hands and tongue going, Miss Norma explained that one of the children in the juvenile dance on the boards at The Garden Opera House had been suddenly taken ill, and a matinée advertised for the next day.
"And it happens lucky enough," she went on, addressing the ladies who, catching wind of the excitement, had speedily gathered about the doorway, "it just happens I have been teaching her this very dance, and if she don't get frightened, I believe she will be able to take the place."
So saying, Miss Bonkowski gave a pull out and a last finishing pat to the strings of the embroidered muslin bonnet the child had worn on her first appearance, and taking her, clean, dainty, smiling and expectant, into her arms, Miss Norma plunged out of the comparative coolness of the Tenement hallway into the glare of the August sun.
But all this while the little brain was at work. "Goin' to Angel's mamma,—her goin' to her mamma," suddenly the child broke forth as Norma hurried along the hot streets, and the little hand beat a gleeful tattoo as it rested on Norma's shoulder.