“I’ve come for the baby,” she said, with a gentle imperiousness.  “I’ve just heard about poor Annie.  Of course we are the ones to see to little Ellen.  If mother were here she would insist upon it.  Where are her wraps, please?  And has one of you an extra shawl she can lend me?  It’s a sharp night.”

As she spoke, Charlotte knelt before the child and held out her arms.  Baby Ellen stared at her for an instant, then seemed to recognise a friend and lifted two little arms, her tiny lips quivering.  Charlotte drew her gently up, and rising, walked away across the room with her, the small golden head nestling in her neck.  The women looked after her rather resentfully.

“I suppose the child wouldn’t be sufferin’ with such as us,” said one, “if we ain’t got no silk quilts to put over her.”

“Neither have I,” said Charlotte, with a smile, as she caught the words.  “But I’m so fond of her.  Annie was my nurse, you know.”

“May I carry her home for you?” asked the doctor, at her elbow.

“Jeff is here,” she answered.

But it was the doctor who carried the baby, after all, for she cried at sight of Jeff.  She was ready to cry at sight of any strange face, poor little frightened child!  But Doctor Churchill held her so tenderly and spoke so soothingly that she grew quiet at once.

It was a silent walk, and it was only as they reached the house that the doctor said softly to Charlotte, “If you need advice or help, don’t hesitate to call on Mrs. Fields.  She’s a wise woman, and her heart is warm, you know.”

“Yes, I know, thank you!  And thank you, doctor, for—­not scolding me about this!”

“Scold you?” he said, as Charlotte took the baby from him at the door.  “Why should I do that?”

“Jeff did, and I didn’t dare tell Lanse.”

“If you hadn’t brought the baby home,” whispered the doctor, “I should have.”  And Charlotte, looking quickly up at him as Jeff opened the door and the light streamed out upon them, surprised upon his face, as his eyes rested upon the baby’s pink cheek, an expression which could hardly have been more tender if he had been Ellen’s father.

“Now, Jeffy, get the crib down, please, as softly as you can,” begged Charlotte, when she had laid the baby on her own white bed and noiselessly closed the door.  Jeff tried hard to do her bidding, but the crib did not get down-stairs without a few scrapings and bumpings, which made Charlotte hold her breath lest they rouse a sleeping household.

“Now go down and warm some milk for her in the blue basin.  Don’t get it hot—­just lukewarm.  Put the tiniest pinch of sugar in it.”

“You seem to know a lot about babies,” Jeff murmured, pausing an instant to watch his sister gently pulling off the baby’s clothes.

“I do.  Didn’t I have the care of you?” answered Charlotte, with a mischievous smile.

“Two years younger than yourself?  Oh, of course, I forgot that,” and Jeff crept away down-stairs after the milk.  It took him some time, and when he came tiptoeing back he found the baby in her little coarse flannel nightgown, her round blue eyes wide-awake again.