The nurse was obliged to return at once to New York, and the Mortons found themselves at nightfall in the position of having an unexpected guest for whom there was no provision. Even the wardrobe of the new member of the family was almost nothing, consisting of the garments she was wearing and an extra gingham dress which a woman in the steerage of the ship had taken from her own much larger child to give to the waif.
"Ayleesabet" ate her supper daintily, like one who has been so near the borderland of starvation that he cannot understand the uses of plenty, and then she went heavily to sleep in Ethel Blue's lap before the fire in the living room.
Aunt Louise and Dorothy came over from their cottage to join the conference.
"It is really a considerable problem," said Mrs. Morton thoughtfully. "These children here say they are going to attend to her clothing, and it's right they should, for she is the Club baby; but there are other questions that are serious. Where, for instance, is she going to sleep?"
A laugh rippled over the room as she asked the question, for the sleeping accommodations of the Morton house were regarded as a joke since the family was so large and the house was so small that a guest always meant a considerable process of rearrangement.
"It isn't any laughing matter, girls. She can have Dicky's old crib, of course, but where shall we put it?"
"It's perfectly clear to me," said Mrs. Smith, responding to an appealing glance from Dorothy, "that the baby must come to us. Dorothy and I have plenty of room in the cottage, and it would be a very great happiness to both of us—the greatest happiness that has come to me since—since—"
She hesitated and Dorothy knew that she was thinking about the baby brother who had died years ago.
"It does seem the best way," replied Mrs. Morton, "but—"
"'But me no buts'," quoted Mrs. Smith, smiling. "The baby's coming is equally sudden to all of us, only I happen to be a bit better prepared for an unexpected guest, because I have more space. Then Dorothy has been just as crazy as the other girls to have a 'Belgian baby,' and she shouted just as loudly as anybody at the pier—I heard her."