Slowly the kindly tides brought her back to life, and against her own belief that it would ever be so, she found herself walking again, essaying the stairs, taking her place at the table.  Miss Wheaton went away, the capable Caroline took her place, and Julia was well.

Caroline was a silent, nice-looking, efficient woman of forty.  She knew everything there was to know about babies, and had more than one book to consult when she forgot anything.  She had been married, and had two handsome sturdy little girls of her own, so that little Anna’s rashes and colics, her crying days and the days in which she seemed to Julia alarmingly good, presented no problems to Caroline.  There was nothing Julia could tell her about sterilizing, or talcum powder, or keeping light out of the baby’s eyes, or turning her over in her crib from time to time so that she shouldn’t develop one-sidedly.

More than this, Anna was a good baby; she seemed to have something of her mother’s silent sweetness.  She ran through her limited repertory of eating, sleeping, bathing, and blinking at her friends with absolute regularity.

“I’d just like you to leave the door open so that if she should cry at night—­” Julia said.

“But she never does cry at night!” Caroline smiled.

Julia persisted for some time that she wanted to bathe the baby every day, but before Anna was two months old she had to give up the idea.  It became too difficult to do what nobody in the house wanted her to do, and what Caroline was only too anxious to perform in her stead.  Jim liked to loiter over his breakfast, and showed a certain impatience when Julia became restive.

“What is it, dear?  What’s Lizzie say?  Caroline wants you?”

“It’s just that—­it’s ten o’clock, Jim, and Caroline sent down to know if I am going to give Anna her bath this morning!”

“Oh, bath—­nothing!  Let Caroline wait—­what’s the rush?”

“It’s only that baby gets so cross, Jim!” Julia would plead.

“Well, let her.  You know you mustn’t spoil her, Julie.  If there’s one thing that’s awful it’s a house run by a spoiled kid!  Do let’s have our breakfast in peace!”

Julia might here gracefully concede the point, and send a message to Caroline to go on without her.  Or she might make the message a promise to perform the disputed duty herself, “in just a few minutes.”

She would run into the nursery breathlessly, and take the baby in her arms.  Everything would be in readiness, the water twinkling in the little bathtub, soap and powder, fresh little clothes, and woolly bath apron all in order.

“But Hush, Sweetest!  How cross she is this morning, Caroline!”

“Yes, Mrs. Studdiford.  You see she ought to be having her bottle now, it’s nearly eleven!  Dear little thing, she was so good and patient.”

“Well, darling, Mudder’ll be as quick as she can,” Julia might console the baby, and under Caroline’s cool eye, and with Anna screaming until she was scarlet from her little black crown to the soles of her feet, the bath would somehow proceed.  Ellie might put her head in the door.