"If you ain't made five left sleeves and only
one right!"
Charlotte looked up, crimsoning. "How could I have done it?"
"Easy enough." Mrs. Field's expression softened instantly at sight of
the girl's dismay. "I've done it a good many times. Something about
it--sleeves act bewitched. They seem bound to hang together and be all
one kind or all the other, anything but pairs."
"Why don't you rest a little, and take baby outdoors in her new coat?"
Celia suggested. "Sewing is such wearisome work, if one isn't used to
it."
So Charlotte and her charge gladly went out. A neighbour had lent an old
baby sled, and in it Miss Ellen Donohue, snuggled to the chin in the
warmest of garments and wrappings, took her first airing since the
night, a week before, when she had been brought home in Doctor
Churchill's arms.
She was a shy but happy baby, and had already won all hearts. Nobody was
willing to begin the steps necessary to place her in any of the
institutions designed for cases like hers. Charlotte, indeed, would not
hear of it; and even the practical John Lansing, who had learned to
figure the family finances pretty closely since he himself had become
the wage-earner, succumbed to the touch of baby fingers on his face and
the glance of a pair of eyes like forget-me-nots.
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