"Oh, I forgot! I've brought her a present," and Hughey tugged at a small parcel that was bulging from the pocket of his overcoat. "It's tin soldiers and a little cannon; father brought me them from Bridgeton. Aren't they fine? I'll show her how to stand them up."
"I've a whimsey name for you," said Miss Emmy, as she set down her coffee cup, a relic of grandma Gilbert's old Lowestoft with the little half Chinese flower on front and in bottom, and stooping over the child, kissed the rim of her ear that had an odd break in its curve like the blemish on the petal of a flower that has folded too tight in the bud, "a name that won't mix you up with any Mrs. Nero. You aren't to be called lady baby any more, but Poppea of the post-office!"
Poppea, however, gave no heed; she was absorbed in the ecstatic task of tasting tin soldier.
CHAPTER VI
AS IT WAS WRITTEN
The twilight had been long for April, as though the vivid sunset colors had fairly dazzled night, but now it was fading. Oliver Gilbert sat before his desk in the workshop. He was not looking at what was before him, but out of the window across road and fields to where a pearly mist, in which floated the crescent of the new moon, hung above Moosatuck. The rush of the river over the last dam that checked it above the mills was occasionally punctuated by the cry of a little screech-owl or the call of a robin shifting its perch, while the rhythmic chorus of peeping frogs insisted upon "sleep-sleep-sleep."
That Gilbert was tired was apparent in the deepened lines of his face and droop of his shoulders, but it was wholly fatigue of mind. The adoption which had for a month filled his waking and sleeping thoughts was a thing accomplished. A week before, when the matter hung in the balance, possession of the child had seemed the finality. To-night it appeared as merely an open gate through which stretched a vista beyond ken; across this many figures passed to and fro, but with faces in shadow or averted. A question asked by Satira Pegrim at supper had given birth to the entire throng.
"Don't you calkerlate, Gilbert, it'll be best to lead her up to calling us aunty and uncle? Then byme-by, when she comes to know, as know she must, there won't be such a mess o' unravellin' to do."
Gilbert had answered hotly, chided her unreasonably, ending by saying that the child called him Daddy already, and that it could do no harm as she grew up for the two white stones on the hillside to stand for Mother and little sister. Perhaps, God helping, she might not learn the truth until she was a woman and married. Then it need not hurt so much. Thus Gilbert drugged himself reckless with hope, after the manner of us all.