The child, all unconscious that his destiny was being settled,
was playing with two of the little Davises at the other end of the room.
The three days of good food, good treatment, and pleasant surroundings
had told on him, and he looked less forlorn and more like the child that
he was. He was clean. His brown eyes were sparkling with amusement, and
his brown hair was brushed up into the damp "roach" so dear to a woman's
heart. He was, thus, a far less forbidding sight than on the morning of
his mother's death, when, dingy and haggard, he rose from his dirty
pallet. As she listened to the varied remarks of her associates, Miss
Hester allowed her eyes to wander to the child's face, and for a moment
a tenderer expression grew about her lips, but in an instant it was
gone, and, as if she had been near committing herself to folly, she made
amends by drawing her countenance into more than its usually severe
lines.

Mrs. Warren, who was always ready with a stab, and who had not
forgotten her encounter of two days ago, spoke up with a little
malicious laugh. "Miss Hester 'ain't got no family: mebbe she might take
the child. 'Pears like she ought to be fond o' childern."

Mrs. Davis immediately came to the rescue. "We don't expect no sich
thing of Miss Hester. She 's never been around childern, an' don't know
nothin' about takin' keer o' them; an' boys air hard to manage, anyhow."

"Oh, I should think Miss Hester could manage 'most anything," was the
sneering rejoinder.

The women were aghast at such insolence. They did n't know what the
effect might be on Miss Prime. They looked at her in alarm. Her cold
grey eye impaled Mrs. Warren for an instant only, and then, paying no
more attention to her, she said quietly, "I was thinkin' this whole
matter over while I was finishin' up my work to come here, an', says I
to myself, 'Now there 's Melissy Davis,--she 's the very one that 'ud be
a mother to that child,' says I, 'an' she 'd bring him up right as a
child should be brought up.' I don't know no more mannerly,
nice-appearin' childern in this neighbourhood, or the whole town, fur
that matter, than Melissy's--'"

"Oh, Miss Hester!" faltered Mrs. Davis.

But Miss Prime went on, unheeding the interruption. "Thinks I, 'Melissy
's got a houseful already, an' she can't take another.' Then you comes
into my mind, Mis' Austin, an' says I, 'La me! she 's got three herself,
an' is young yit; she 'll have her hands full to look after