Rebecca admitted it was a boy.
"And did you write such letters on Storks?"
Again Rebecca admitted that she had not. "We don't got to write no letters over babies," said she with pride. "We gets 'em anyways. My mamma is got thirteen childrens. We ain't all babies now, but we was."
Esther returned crestfallen to her second-floor home, and sought the comforting arms of Mrs. Moriarty, her chaperon and guardian.
"But whatever made you write for a baby?" demanded Mrs. Moriarty, when the Stork's carelessness had been explained to her. "Aren't you and your father and me happy enough in this grand new house without a baby to be botherin' us?"
Unconsciously she had touched the root of Esther's trouble.
"I needs a baby," she wailed, "the whiles my papa he ain't lovin' no more mit me. And I wants somebody shall love me."
"What you think we got to our house?"