oint. Moreover, she had the proud woman's
invariable suspicion of a gift; withal, there was a certain cynicism
which made her say "presents weren't given for nothing in this world."
Anyway, she decided, they were gone, and a good riddance, and she
wouldn't ask them to Hagworth Street again in a hurry. The problem of
getting in a woman to help now arose. Mrs. Nightman was off to-morrow;
Alf and Ede would be back in a week, and Charlie's breakfast must be
attended to. Mrs. Nightman informed her she knew where a likely girl of
fifteen was to be found--a child warranted to be willing and clean and
truthful. To-morrow, Mrs. Raeburn settled, this paragon must be
interviewed.

To-morrow dawned, and in the wake of sunrise came the paragon. She still
wore the dresses of childhood, but paid toll to responsibleness by
screwing up her mouse-colored hair to the likeness of a cockle-shell,
adding thereby, in her mother's estimation, eighteen months, in her own,
ten years, to her age. She was a plum-faced child, with glazed cheeks.
Her nose, Mrs. Raeburn observed with pleasure, did not drip like palings
on a wet day. The paragon was just an ordinary old little girl, pitched
into life with a pair of ill-fitting boots, a pinafore, and half a dozen
hairpins. But she would do. Wait a minute. Was she inclined to loll or
mouch? No. Was she bound to tilt a perambulator? No. Must she read light
fiction when crossing a road? She didn't like reading.

Mrs. Raeburn decided more than ever that she would do.

Was she good at washing unwilling children? She washed many brothers and
sisters with yellow soap and dried them thoroughly every Saturday night.
Did she want the place? Mother would be glad if she got it. What was her
name? Ruby. Mrs. Raeburn thanked goodness she had abandoned Ruby as a
possible suffix to Jenny. Her surname? O'Connor. Irish? She didn't know.
Yes, she should have a week's trial.

So the paragon became a part of the household as integral as the
furniture and almost as ugly, and, as she grew older, almost as
unnecessarily decorated. Alfie, the young Tartar, tried to break her in
by severe usage, but succumbed to the paragon's complete imperviousness.
Edie was too young to regard her as anything but an audience for long
and baseless fits of weeping.

The two children were brought back by Aunt Mabel from her house at
Barnsbury, where they had sojourned during the birth of their sister.

Mrs. Raeburn was softer and plumper a