“Orphan asylum nothing!” cried Anna and waited a minute. Then as Mrs. Langley did not speak she said casually: “I brought him home with me.”
Mrs. Langley sat up straight. “Anna Miller!” she exclaimed.
“There was nothing else to do and anyhow I wanted to. The little beggar needs fresh air and sunshine and—Farleigh.”
“You don’t mean that you’re going to keep him?” Mrs. Langley protested.
Anna’s heart sank. She had truly decided to bring the baby home because there had seemed no alternative. But no sooner was she out of the sadness and confusion and settled in the train than she had realised the fitness, the inevitability of her action. She was bringing the baby straight to Mrs. Langley. A baby was exactly what Mrs. Langley needed and wanted and what Mr. Langley would enjoy most of anything. If she had chosen, she would probably have had a girl, but she wasn’t sure that that wouldn’t have been a mistake. And though Anna, who was wild over all young creatures, was attached to little Joe already, she decided to hand him over to Mrs. Langley as soon as the transfer could be affected. But even before she had come to the parsonage to-day, she had realised that it wasn’t altogether the simple matter it would seem to be and that it wasn’t to be accomplished without finesse. Still she had expected one visit to finish the negotiations,—and she had nearly missed mentioning it at all!
“I hardly know,” she faltered. “That is, I’m going to keep him of course until I find a good home for him. I’d like to keep him always only—ma wasn’t so tremendously pleased to have him added to her family, and of course I wouldn’t have dreamed of taking him to Miss Penny’s though she would have taken him in forever if I had said the word. However, I own that it was something of a surprise to ma—springing the baby on her at the same time she saw my Sampson-Delilah hair-cut. But heaps of people would give their heads to get a nice baby ready-made just at the cunning age, or nearly, and with the worst of his teething over.”
She waited anxiously. Mrs. Langley only stared at her.
“People that haven’t any children or people that have lost children,—lost them when they were babies, ought to jump at such a chance,” she went on, longing to have Mrs. Langley ask some question, however reluctantly, concerning the child. But the invalid held up a protesting hand.
“Anna! I would never have believed that you would speak in that unfeeling way about—the loss of a baby!” she cried.
“I didn’t mean to,” said Anna quickly. “I just wanted—perhaps Mr. Langley might know of some good home where they would take in the little fellow. Would you mind telling him about little Joe and asking him?”