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t TXT X1 A lale ona c yiBiii!m'itBiuiaa OUR niece Milliccntc is only twenty-two, and to see her with her baby in her arms is consid erably like watching a wax doll play with a kitten, or a wild rose give attention to a but terfly. Xo one can think bow tenderly we observe her Pclcas and I, who are seventy and arc supposed to be concerned with far soberer matters. In rc.i'ity we know none of the sweet surprises of experi ence and even of wisdom that so con turn our joy in ifi a- f' e sight of our niece Milliccntc with her baby. 'uriccd that when the baby was but a few weeks j' :he young father was called to The Hague upni i 'nf government -business a state of affairs for which 't .'! seemed to Pclcas and me that the United States di '..! be called to account. For experience shows that 'tf . eminent will go irresistibly forward, but Milli e' c's husband can never be compensated for that ab- ' t9SBtHBB A Wfe w . ' SUF. DID STOr CRVINO, TII0UO1I SIIK LOOKHO AT TIir.SK sence; and I would like to have anyone object who can believe differently. For. all his impatience to sec whether the little maid had really grown to womanhood in those sk weeks or so, he was obliged to report at Washington immedi ately upon his return. Consequently, when the steam ship was almost due, our niece Millicenlc found that hc could wait for him to see the baby's amazing im provement not one day later than that upon which his "vt was to arrive. So she took train somewhere in Vermont with that very little child and arrived at our V'usc a few minutes before her telegram, in a sad state jf i "llapsc and almost burning up with fever. She has n nurse-maid. They are very young married people ndecd. '1 he night that Milliccntc and her baly reached us, l'' WS ami I had been sitting for an hour in the dark if the drawing-room. We were happy enough, and yet it was one of the nights when all the little shadows that live so very near to one come creeping forth, each made bolder by the others. And when one is seventy there arc many shadows though kept back for the greater part of the time, mind you, and never so much as al lowed to show their faces. Hut someway that night all the shadows had arranged a rendezvous, and Pclcas and I were sitting in a very circle of them. "We dreamed it differently, Kttarc," Pclcas had said llowly. I knew what he meant. Have we not all dreamed it differently? And then we sat thinking of the Great Dream that we bad and lost a dream so bright that it was like a star. For though we are seventy now, and many bright vistas arc closed to us, there was a time when Pclcas could still model and I could write so that a few were deceived that the great Dream for one radiant year was in our home, too, and went away when little Ccdric died. F'or years since then we have gone wondering where he may be now, without us? For he was so very little when be left us be could hardly take & step alone even by clinging to my finger and Pclcas', EXT WEEK: "A Double Celebration." By Alice Brown and we laughing- with all our might. And so, lest he may still be needing us as he needed us then, we arc never very far from him in thought, and that night we talked long of him, and one by one all the other little shadow-dreams went away in the presence of this dicam that was no shadow, but something far more beautiful and terrible. So we were sitting with "Do you remember?" and "Hut do you remember?" on our lips when the door bell rang and Xichola, our old servant, came grumbling up the stairs to answer it. We wondered a little, for we have few visitors and no small excitements. We wondered the more when the drawing-room door was thrown open and on the threshold appeared Nichola, bearing in her arms a white bundle that wore long and alarmingly Huffy skirts, "Xicnpla!" we both cried in a flutter for you do 1 1 - . IIl'Mtll C l'VP.OI I.CIIMCS SOMUWIIA T IIAL'MII'I il.V. not know how p'casint it is wlfn the days grow color less to have something happen which you vourself did not bring about ! "Xichola! What is' it?'1 " It's a brbbv," Xichola informed us grimly, and laid it in Pelcas' arms face downward, as lie told me af terward. Then she beckoned me to the hall and 1 went, barely able to stand, for I was certain that it bad been left in a basket on the steps with nothing but a locket, and whatever were we to do with it? "Xichola!" panted, "whose baby'" Xichola was bending over the bench in the hall, and there .at poor little Milliccntc, her face flushed with fever, crying helplessly. " X nobody told mc," she sobbed on my shoulder, "what it w.iiild be like to travel with a six-weeks-old baby. She cried every in mile of the way here and she is a good baby, too I " lilcss the little mothers ! I have never yet known one who would not assure you, though in the" presence of a child exhibiting a most dreadful temper, that her baby was " usually so good, too." Together, though I suppose that I hindered far more than I helped, Xichola and I got Milliccntc upstairs and put her in bed poor, nervous little thing, hardly more than a babv herself for all her wise use of the most advanced baby terms. Xichola hurried 'downstairs for something hot, and bustled back after a few minutes' absence with a steam ing bowl of some mysterious compound how do some people always know what to bring you. hot and savory, in a bowl? If I had gone down to the kitchen I am sure that I could have devised nothing but eggs. Xichola insisted upon feeding Milliccntc the impudent old woman has noticed that when I am excited my hands tremble. Hut whose do not? As for Xichola, as I have often told her, she could not tremble if a giant weie to walk in the front door. Instead of fear, Xichola's way of emotion is always anger, and I dare say she would tartly remind such a giant of the pur pose of the door-mat. " You'd best," said Xichola to me over her shoulder, " go downstairs and sec after that babby." Xichola's scorn was scathing. Xichola dislikes a great many things, but the greatest of these is babies. When she passes one in its perambulator L have seen her take the extreme edge of the walk. "They ain't a bone in 'em." she once explained. " When you go to pick 'cm up. they sliiufsc." I remembered this failing of Xichola's as I hurried downstairs to Peleas, but I was chicflv concerned to know how he had got on in my fifteen-minute absence Pclcas, who will not even hold my Persian cat. Xo sound came from the drawing-room. I crossed the ball quietly and opened the door. Pclcas had man aged to turn on the lights, and furthcrmotc he had contrived to take off the baby's cloak and hood and veil though usually he could as easily embroider a thing as to untie it, save after a long tunc. And there sat Pclcas on the sofa, with the baby in one arm. and be was gravely holding a lighted match a foot from her face. As I looked, he threw the burned match in the grate, soberly lighted another, and repeated the performance. Evidently he construed some movement of the baby's face to be an answering smile; at all events, Pe'cas' own face took on a mist tender and inane expression, and he said elearlv : " Well lot. tol. tolly tol ! Ycs ! " And then added in a tone to convince all the jurors of the world: "Of course!" I hurried forward laughing at lfim, for all the sudden lump in my throat. It is sad for Pclcas to be nobody's grandfather when he looks so precisely like a grand father on the stage. "What are the matches for, Peleas?" T cried. He looked up with the adorably abashed expression that I love to bring in his eyes. " They keep its attention," he murmured apologetically. "Xothing else would. I think it's hungrv. "' It'! " cried 1 scornfully. "Why, it's" a girl." " Well." placidly argued Peleas, " you said ' It's a girl,' and I said 'It's hungry.' What's the difference?" And to this there was really no response. The baby's disturbed babbling simmered to a steady fretting which increased in volume and violence. Hun gry 'it" undoubtedly was. I remembered that Milliccnte's black bag lay on the bench in the hall. I hurried to it, and there was the baby's bottle empty. When I came back, though Peleas was lighting matches at a furious rate, the baby was crving at the top of her small strength. "She'll disturb Milliccntc," I said; "Pclcas," I added, as one suggesting revolutions, " we must take her down to the kitchen and feed her." Ah, you to whom sifch sweet offices arc the beauty or. heaven help us, the burden ! of every day, what can you possibly know of the thrill of that moment to one whose arms have been empty for so long so long? I protest that holding the keys to The 1 (ague, and to all Holland, and to whole continents is not to be compared to the radiant responsibility of that moment. Peleas promptly stood tip and extended bis arms. "Take her," said he, with enchanting masculine help lessness. Peleas will not even let me cany my prim roses up and down stairs, but merely because this was a baby he resigned his rights ! Really I had well nigh forgotten how extraordinarily humble men arc in such a presence. I took her in my arms, and she settled down with that contented little gurgle which always attends a babv's changing bands, most subtly flattering the new nurse until the storm breaks afresh, harder than ever before. This the storm did now, and I looked at Peleas a little wildly. For whatever was to be done, I must do. "Go first," said I like Caesar to bis torch-bearer on the lip of the Rubicon " and open the kitchen door." We went down the stairs, one foot at a time, and when Peleas opened the door the sight warmed my heart. The kitchen was cheery and brightly lighted, a hot fire was blazing in the range, and the tea-kettle was singing away to make the most miserable at peace." Sometime I shall write an essay containing advice to those who are bluest, and the stun of it will be: go and put on the tea-kettle. I sat by the tire while Pelcas. by devious ways of pan try and refrigerator, sought out the milk, and we weie very merry over warming it, for it was a very wonderful occasion. Peleas siiilled a great deal on Xichola's per fectly polished griddles oh, I could not have loved him if his hands had been firm and indifferent in such a pleasant excitement. Then he came and sat beside mi and the baby drank with little soft shuo Wing- breathe ai the painful memory of how hungty she really had been. I bei t above her, and so did Peleas, our heads quite elo e together as we watched her, and heard the little soft uoi-es and sighs, and met her eyes' grave, woudermr criticism. So long so long it had been si-cc 1 had seen that one serious eye lifted to mc as a little face 1a against my breast ! Peleas put out one finger, and the little funny hai d caught it and clung to it. Peleas wrinkled his eyes ,i' the comers and smiled up at me I had almost forgott-n how be used to do that and then wait for me to so A ' him and to tell him that at that rate 1 never could get Cedric to sleep. Someway, when Peleas had done that now, we sat silent. For very little babies are never un like, and if I had really let myself 1 might have imagined, and so l think might Peleas have imagined . . . that which, for more than forty years, we have only dreamed At last the baby moved her head, gurgled a brief grace, and stared up at us unwiukingly, and then wrinkled her face most a.toundintjly. Peleas ro-c wildly and looked about frantically for the matches ---one would have said that we were fugitives from jiistir.-. crouched behind an open panel and that our safety d. -pended upon keeping that baby quiet during the pa'ssiii' of the men-at-arms. I cannot tell how it is with other-,, but when one is seventy a baby affects one quite lik' this, and to keep it from crying seems all the law and a fair proportion of the prophets. So that when Peb-as came with a box of paraffin matches and lighted whole handftils before Millicente's baby's eyes 1 could sav very little. She did stop crying, though she looked at these humble pyrotechnics somewhat haughtily and as if she knew far more about them than she cared to give out. The stair-door docs not creak, and Xichola was quite in the kitchen before we heard her. She indulged in one comprehensive glance, which did not even omit the matches, and she passed us on the other side of the room. "It's mother wants it right straight off," she re marked, with her back toward us. Peleas anil I rose promptly and meekly made our way upstairs. Old Xichola dictates to us all day long in mat ters in which, as I think, we arc really far wiser than she ; how then should we not yield in crises of which we may be supposed to know nothing? Though I am bound to confess, that I felt myself as wise as little Mil licentc, who, as 1 have said, is a baby herself. And this brings me to something about which I have often won dcred ; namely, when the actual noon of motherhood may be? For, as I live, it seems to mc that all the mothers of babies of my acquaintance are cither them selves babies or else I catch myself thinking of them that they arc too old and even spiustcrish in their no tions to" be able perfectly to bring up the child, And yet it cannot very well be that I was the only mother neither too voting nor too old to train youth properly. 1 laid the'liltle thing in Millicente's bed, and .Milliccntc smiled that tender, pitiful, young mother smile that somehow breaks one's heart no matter how happy the young mother be. And an hour later, while the doctor was with Milliccntc an idea came to mc that set me in a delicious flutter. I had forgotten that there are such sweet excitements in the world. I hugged the hope in silence for a moment and then shared it with Peleas, "Suppose," 1 said, "that Milliccntc should need her rest to-night?" I looked at him tentatively, expecting bun to under stand at once, as he almost never fails to do. I did npt remember that it is far easier to understand in a matter of books or philosophy or the like, which have occupied COrVKlGHT, ijoj us these many years, than to adjust oneself without preparation to the luminous suggestion that 1 was har boring. "I hope that site will hac a good night," advanced Peleas with appalling densitv. " Hut silppo e," 1 persisted, " that she should need her rest, and that the doctor thought that the babj would hi certain to disturb her? " "If it cries," suggested Peleas then, with a magnificent generosity, " you niioht go in and rod: it awhile." "Pclcas!"'! cried in complete 'corn, "don't joit see? Maybe we can have the baby with us all night! " Pelcas looked up in surprise; then his dear face shone. " Could we, do you think? " he asked softly, as wc ask when we want a" thing very much. " Wc will ! " I promised, Therefore when wc beard the doctor coming down we hurried to the hall and waited for hint at the foot of the stairs. Hetwecn us we must have laid the matter before bun, though I do not in the least remember what we said, lint someway wc made him know, for he nodded and smiled in a surprising fashion. " Yes," said he, kindly, " yes I really am persuaded that it would be an act of charity for jott to keep that baby with jou to-night." " On our niece's account, you know," said I w ith dig nity. "Certainly," said he gravely, and caught up his hat and rushed "away. All the time it somed to me tii.it he was curiously moved about something, and 1 feared that Milliceute might be very ill. As for Peleas and mc, we could hardly wait to go upstairs. Of course Xichola hid to know; she brought up the milk and the alcohol lamp and we v. ere obliged to ted her. To tell Xichola th.-'t yon mean to do some thing which she thinks is fooKh is very much l-.kc a confession that your whole point of view is ignorant and diseased. Still in sonic fashion Pelcas and I together told her. Our old servant legnrded us with the disap probation which it is her delipht not to disguise. Then on her brown lingers she checked matters olT. " Xo sleep for neither one o' you," she cast up the account, "headaches to-morrow. Death o' cold dancin' in an' out o' bed. An' a smothered babby by mornin'." "Oh, no, Xichola," said we gently but swecpingly. I brought the baby in our room to undress her. Our room was cheerful and warm. Pelcas had lighted all the candles as we do on the rare occasions when we are dressing for some great event; and the open tire was burning. On a table beside the bed stood the nv!k and the glasses strangely enough they looked, where only my. Bible and my medicine have lived for so long. 1 h" baby was asleep when we look her from Milbcentc, but she waked and smiled impartially and played with the ribbon of her ring in perfect peace. 1 took off the Utile garments feeling all the old skill come back to my poor hands idle to all such sweet business for more than forty years. Peleas insisted upon taking oft the tiny shoes and stockings ; and when I saw the little feet in his palm, almost I could have believed tor one swift moment, that the years had indeed rolled back. Then we wrapped her warmly and laid her in the great bed. And Peleas spent a long while happily tucking in and tucking down and pretending to be very useful. Wc had thought to rcad for a little while, and indeed we did try; but neither of us could keep our eyes any where near the book, or could listen to the other read aloud. Once her little hand was thrown up over the edge of the covers. What did we care about the friezes of the Parthenon then? Old Xichola looked in. " Best leave a lamp burnin'," she said, crossly as if we needed advice "an' if it should cry, you call me." By which, as Pel. as said afterward, she by no means WE WKKK SITTING WITH " DO VOtT RF.MPMUFR intended to provide, for the po siblc emotion of the lamp. To tell the truth, I was loncing to feel that little head in the hollow of my arm. 1 laid it there presently, ami tucked my hand between the two pillows, as I lirtil been wont, and held away the covering from the little face. There was the dark hair, and there was the tiny baud uplifted, and as I live' there was the identical ruffle of lace that alwavs used to bother about the iltle rliin. t 'i 'lint first ecstatic moment I looked up at Peleas al- most frightened, and half expected the buoyant, youth ful face and the dear eyes that were wont to look down upon Ccdric and mc. And the dear eyes smiled, for they have never changed. 1 lay very still, listening to that quiet breathing, tn the little rustle and t.iriung which is a tender language of its own. When one is seventy, and closes one's eyes, it is wonderful how the whole world grow- vnuthful. And when J had almost dozed, that little tnuler rustling brought me back so happily that I could liardlv tell which was memory of that other little hrvA upon my arm, and which was now. Midnight was the important moment when the baby's food must be warmed, and .it was I W"ho did this, for Pelea,' old familiar helplines? in this little presence delighted me beyond measure. And when she grew impatient and cried a little, Pelea? valiantly lifh'ed matches before her and she fell silent and even smiled and slept again. At live 'elnrk thi? had to be repeated, and 1 record it as a inert matter of history that in the meantime I had not 'cpt for a moment. For there hail come thronging lurk such a company of memories, such a very flight of the angete of the old delight of our wonderful year when there was Ccdric, that the world had no room for sleep at all. Sleeti ! I do not suppo-e tint air.one wo'i'd chide me for being wakeful at a ball? And nothing in the world co'ild have been so delightful to me as were those hours when that little head lay upon my arm Sometime after daylight she awoke. Cedric had beer wont to he quietly as long as ever f would, but Milli i elite's baby for it was Millicente's baby for all our pretending! awoke and played with her lists. Then a fancy that had hovered over me all the night took shape, and I told it to Peleas. "Dear," 1 said, "you know the things in the bottom drawer in the closet?" "Yes," said Pclcas at once, "I have been thinking about them." " Suppose," I suggested, " that we were to to try some of them on the bain ? " " I have been thinking the same thing," said Peleas. It was delieiouIy comfortable in the room wc hart kept the hearth alive all night. When we were warmly wrapped and had drawn chairs before the fire, Peleas; brought from the bottom drawer the box filled with th tender, yellow muslins, and the socks that Cedric hadi; worn stteh a little while. I chose the lace gown that F bad made my .-elf, every stitch ; and over her little night gowit we put it on Millicente's baby. She was very good, and laughed and nestled ; and so we found th long white cloak that I had embroidered, and a bonnet that I had made. And Millicente's baby's arm douVed up in a ball when I tried to put it in the sleeve - and I impose that there never was a baby's arm that did not do this under similar circumstances, but I have known only one little arm. And when the pink hand cam. peeping through the cuff Peleas caught it and kissed it oh, I had not thought for years how he had been used to do that ! " Xow ! " I said, " Pclcas look now ! " Millicente's baby sat on my knee, with her back to us both. The little bent back in that white coat, the soft collar crumpling up about the neck in spite of mc, the same little bonnet with the flower in the back and the lace all around Peleas laid his cheek against mine, and we cried to gether. I am not ashamed for I did not cry with grief; only with a longing that was like the hope of heaven. We did not hear Xichola coming with our coffee. So she opened the door and saw the box on the floor and the things scattered all about. She knew what they were. She was with us when little Cedric was here, and she had not forgotten. She stood still for a moment, . and then set the tray down on the table. " A NO " FIT 1)0 VOf FFMKMTIFK'" f,N Ol'R Mrs. " Drink your coffee!" she cried sharply, and was out of the room before wc could speak In a moment, when I could and because Millicente's baby cried then I laid her in Peleas' arms and went out to tell Xichola to bring more milk And there in the passage, leaning against the bureau, stood Xichola, our old servant, crying as if her heart would break. "Go on away!" she said, shaking her old gray head, ' go on away I "