“I wonder if they chose the bachelor’s doorstep by chance or by intention,” he said.

V

BROWN’S UNBORROWED BABY

“Don!  Don’t take it in!  They’ll come back for it if you don’t—­they’re watching somewhere.  Put it back on the doorstone—­don’t look at it!”

“Why, Sue!” he answered, and for an instant his eyes flashed reproof into hers.  “On such a night?”

“But what can you do with it?”

“Make it comfortable, first.”

He was unwrapping the bundle.  The child was swathed none too heavily in clean cotton comforters; it was crying frantically, and its hands, as Brown’s encountered them in the unwinding, were cold and blue.  There emerged from the wrappings an infant of possibly six weeks’ existence in a world which had used it ill.

“Will you take him while I get some milk?” asked Brown, as naturally as if handing crying babies over to his sister were an everyday affair with them both.

She shook her head, backing away.  “Oh, mercy, no!  I shouldn’t know what to do with it.”

“Sue!” Her brother’s tone was suddenly stern.  “Don’t be that sort of woman—­don’t let me think it of you!”

He continued to hold out the small wailing bundle.  She bit her lip, reluctantly extended unaccustomed arms, and received the foundling into them.

“Sit down close by the fire, my dear, and get those frozen little hands warm.  A bit of mothering won’t hurt either of you.”  And Brown strode away into the kitchen with a frown between his brows.  He was soon back with a small cupful of warm milk and water, a teaspoon, and a towel.

“Do you expect to feed a tiny baby with a teaspoon?” Sue asked with scorn.

“You don’t know much about babies, do you, Sue?  Well, I may have some trouble, but it’s too late to get any other equipment from my neighbours, and I’ll try my luck.”  She watched with amazement the proceedings which followed.  Brown sat down with the baby cradled on his left arm, tucked the half-unfolded towel beneath its chin, and with the cup conveniently at hand upon the table began to convey the milk, drop by drop, to the little mouth.

“I don’t see how you dare do it.  You might choke the child to death.”

“Not a bit.  He’ll swallow a lot of atmosphere and it may give him a pain, but that’s better than starving.  Isn’t it, Baby?”

“You act as if you had half a dozen of your own.  What in the world do you know about babies?”

“Enough to puff me up with pride.  Mrs. Murdison, my right-hand neighbour, is the mother of five; Mrs. Kelcey, on my left, has six—­and two of them are twins.  One twin was desperately ill a while ago.  I became well acquainted with it—­and with the other five.”

“Don!” Again his sister gazed at him as if she found him past comprehension.  “You—­you! What would your friends—­our friends—­say, if they knew?”