The same hands that had transferred her to that more conventional resting-place, bathed and attired her for supper, and though two hours ago she would, as a pirate, have exulted in her guilty possession, somehow as a neat, small person in pink ribbons she felt shy at approaching the subject, and ate her custard in silence.
“A neat small person in pink ribbons.”
Some time during the hours of the next long morning, as she played quietly on the piazza, she caught her mother’s voice, slightly raised to reach the cook’s ear:
“Why, I suppose it is. I shouldn’t wonder, Maggie. I suppose the child picked it up somewhere. Did you hear that, Fred, about Mr. Van Tuyl’s best harness? All scattered through half the back yards on Winter Street. All those brass ornaments, and parts of the very side-lamps, too. Fortunately they found it all. Take that piece, Maggie, and give it to the man when you see him.”
The Vicar sighed. Just then she felt, with the poet, that home-keeping hearts are happiest.
BOBBERT’S MERRY CHRISTMAS
“And that’s how I came to be born in a manger!” Bobbert concluded.
The baby nodded, her mouth a comprehending bud, her eyes big with interest.
“Nuv’ ’tory! Tell Babe nuv’ ’tory!” she demanded.