," Dicky said proudly, as if
this were the best thing he could say about her. "Have to put _my_
work away the moment she wakes up. Isn't she a buster, though?"

"I should say she was!" And indeed, the baby was as fat as a little
partridge. Maida wondered how Dicky could lift her. Also Delia was
as healthy-looking as Dicky was sickly. Her cheeks showed a pink
that was almost purple and her head looked like a mop, so thickly
was it overgrown with tangled, red-gold curls.

"Is she named after your mother?" Maida asked.

"No--after my grandmother in Ireland. But of course we don't call her
anything but 'baby' yet. My, but she's a case! If I didn't watch her
all the time, every pan in this room would be on the floor in a
jiffy. And she tears everything she puts her hands on."

"Granny must see her sometime--Granny's name is Delia."

"Hi, stop that!" Dicky called. For Delia had discovered the little
bundle that Maida had placed on a chair, and was busy trying to tear
it open.

"Let her open it," Maida said, "I brought it for her."

They watched.

It took a long time, but Delia sat down, giving her whole attention
to it. Finally her busy fingers pulled off so much paper that a pair
of tiny rubber dolls dropped into her lap.

"Say 'Thank you, Maida,'" Dicky prompted.

Delia said something and Dicky assured her that the baby had obeyed
him. It sounded like, "Sank-oo-Maysa."

While Delia occupied herself with the dolls, Maida listened to
Dicky's reading lesson. He was getting on beautifully now. At least
he could puzzle out by himself some of the stories that Maida lent
him. When they had finished that day's fairy-tale, Dicky said:

"Did you ever see a peacock, Maida?"

"Oh, yes--a great many."

"Where?"

"I saw ever so many in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris and then my
father has some in his camp in the Adirondacks."

"Has he many?"

"A dozen."

"I'm just wild to see one. Are they as beautiful as that picture in
the fairy-tale?"

"They're as beautiful as--as--" Maida groped about in her mind to find
something to compare them to "--as angels," she said at last.

"And do they really open their tails like a fan?"

"That is the most wonderful sight, Dicky, that you ever saw."
Maida's manner was almost solemn. "When they unfurl the whole fan
and the sun shines on all the green and blue eyes and on all the
little gold feathers, it's so beautiful. Well, it makes you ache. I
_cried_ the first time I saw one