e heard these
remarkable words, and easily reached the bundle first.

"So it is," she exclaimed, picking it tenderly up and opening the wraps
round its face.

It was a swarthy mite, very tightly bound into its clothes.

"What an extraordinary thing!" said Mary. "Fancy finding a baby on the
road!"

"It has probably been abandoned," said Hester. "Very likely it is of
noble birth, and was stolen by gipsies and stained brown, and now they
are afraid of pursuit and have left it."

"How could it be of noble birth?" Gregory asked. "Look how hideous it
is!"

"Looks have nothing to do with high lineage," said Hester. "There have
been very ugly kings."

"It isn't hideous," said Janet. "It's a perfect darling. But what are
we to do with it?"

"If it's a boy," said Gregory, "let's keep it and make it into a
long-stop. We want one badly." (Gregory, as I have said, hated
fielding.)

"Let's adopt it," said Hester. "Mother often says how she wishes we
were still babies."

"Don't let's adopt it if it's a girl," said Gregory.

"It doesn't matter what a baby is," said Hester,--"whether it's a boy
or a girl. The important thing is that it's a baby. When it gets too
big, we can let it go."

"I'm dreadfully afraid," said Janet, "that we shall have to try to find
out whose it is and give it back now."

"Well," said Mary, "we needn't try too hard, need we?"

"How are you going to try, anyway?" Jack asked, with some scorn. "You
can't stop everyone you see and say, 'Have you lost a baby?' This old
man just coming along, for instance."

"Wouldn't a good way," said Robert, "be to write a little placard:

FOUND, A BABY.
Inquire Within.

and stick it on the caravan?"

They liked that idea, but Janet suggested that it would be best to ask
Kink first.

"There's only one thing to do," said Kink, "and that is to hand it over
to the police at the next place we come to."

"Police again!" said Horace. "You're always talking of the police."

"Well," said Kink, "that's what they're for. And if you think a moment
or two, you'll all see what a trouble a baby would be. We shall reach
Oxenton in a little while, and we can leave the baby there."

But, as it happened, they had no need to, for there suddenly appeared
before them a caravan covered with baskets which was being urged
towards them by a young woman who tugged at the horse's head in a kind
of frenzy. As she drew nearer they could hear that she was wailing.

"It must b