“Give her to me!” exclaimed Mrs. Burton, rising to take the baby, but the baby exclaimed “Ah!” and its mother snatched it. Then the baby did its best to hide in its mother’s bosom, and its mother did her best to help it, and by the merest chance a rosy little foot escaped from its covering, seeing which Mrs. Burton hurriedly moved her chair and covered the foot with both her hands; though it would have been equally convenient and far less laborious to have tucked the foot back among its habitual wrappings. Then the boys had to be moved nearer the baby, so that they could touch it, and try to persuade it to coo; and Harry Burton found himself sitting so far from any one else that he drew his chair closer to the group, just to be sociable; and the Lawrences grew gradually to look very happy, while the Burtons grew more and more solemn, and at last the hands of Mr. and Mrs. Burton met under the superabundant wraps of the baby, and then their eyes met, and the lady’s eyes were full of tears and her husband’s full of tenderness, and Budge, who had taken in the whole scene, broke the silence by remarking;
“Why, Aunt Alice, what are you crying for?”
Then every one looked up and looked awkward, until Mrs. Lawrence leaned over the baby and kissed her sister-in-law, noticing which the two men rose abruptly, although Tom Lawrence found occasion to indulge in the ceremony of taking Harry Burton by the hand. Then the baby yielded to her aunt’ solicitations, and changed her resting-place for a few moments, and the gentlemen were informed that if they wanted to smoke they would have to do it in the dining-room, for Mrs. Lawrence was not yet able to bear it. Then the gentlemen adjourned and stared at each other as awkwardly over their cigars as if they had never met before, and the ladies chatted as confidentially as if they were twin sisters that had never been separated, and the boys were carried back to bed, one by each gentleman, and they were re-kissed good night, and their father and uncle were departing when Toddie remarked,
“Papa, mamma hazhn’t gived our sister-baby to Aunt Alish to keep, hazh she?”
“No, old chap,” said Tom.
“I don’t want anybody to have that sister-baby but us,” said Budge; “but if anybody had to, Aunt Alice would be the person. Do you know, I believe she was prayin’ to it, she looked so funny.”
A LITTLE VISITOR AT THE BURTONS’
The gentlemen winked at each other, and again Tom Lawrence took the hand of his brother-in-law. Several months later, the apprehensions of the boys were quieted by the appearance of a little visitor at the Burtons’, who acted as if she had come to stay, and who in the course of years cured Mrs. Burton of every assumption of the ability of relatives to manage “Other People’s Children.”