"Always excepting James," Ethel Brown reminded them and they all laughed, remembering James and his Gallic salute.
"Don't take her tonight, Aunt Louise," begged Ethel Blue. "Let us have her just one night. We can put Dicky's crib into our room between Ethel Brown's bed and mine."
It was finally decided that Elisabeth should not be taken to Dorothy's until the next day, but Mrs. Morton insisted on keeping her in her own room for the night.
"She has such a slight hold on life that she ought to have an experienced eye watching her for some time to come," she said.
All the girls assisted at the baby's going to bed ceremonies, and tall Helen felt a catch in her throat no less than Ethel Blue at sight of the wasted legs and arms and hollow chest.
"I wonder, now," said Aunt Louise when they had gone down stairs again, leaving Ethel Blue and Ethel Brown to sit in the next room until their own bedtime, so that the faintest whimper might not go unheard. "I wonder where we are going to find some one competent to take care of this baby. A child in such a condition needs more than ordinary care; she needs skilled care."
"Mary might have some relatives," Dorothy began, when Helen made a rushing suggestion.
"Why not go to the School of Mothercraft? You remember, it was at Chautauqua for the summer? And it's back in New York now. I've been meaning to ask you or Grandmother or Aunt Louise to take me there some Saturday, only we've been so busy with the Ship we didn't have time for anything else. You remember it?" she asked anxiously, for she had especial reasons for wanting her mother to remember the School of Mothercraft.
"Certainly I remember it, and I believe it will give us just what we want now. It's a new sort of school," she explained to Mrs. Smith. "The students are young women who are studying the science and art of home-making. They are working out home problems in a real home in which there are real children."
"Babies and all?"