"Did yez call, Miss Hoobart?" said a voice from the door.
"Oh, Maggie! Oh dear! Oh! Oh! What shall we do?" cried the woman. She was trying to shake her skirts of the brown little Indian, but he merely clung the harder, and buried his face in the folds.
"Ach, wurra, wurra!" said Maggie. "Oi wudden't a t'o't ut. Phere did yez git um?"
"Hush, you silly girl. It's an Indian baby, and Wong brought him—and he ran away frightened—and somebody played it as a trick—and the wild, infuriated Indian population may be down upon us at any moment to recover the child!"
"Ach!" screamed the girl, jumping high in the air and glancing quickly about. "Phy don't yez l'ave um in the sthrate, the turrible varmint?"
"What, a tiny child, Maggie? Suppose it should freeze to death? It hasn't any clothing to speak of. Oh dear! I do wish Charles were home!"
"Phat yez goin' to do?" whispered Maggie.
"I don't know. Oh, I don't know! We've got to take him in, I suppose, and wait for Charles." Accordingly she walked very gingerly in, while the very diminutive savage continued to cling to the dress and hide his face. "I don't see," she said, breathing easier when the door was closed, "how I'm going to get him away from my skirt. Don't you think you could take him away, Maggie?"
"Oi wudden' touch um for tin dollars!" cried the girl.
"What shall we do? He will never let go."