rs is that nobody once
inside of Paradise door shall be called out."

"That does seem reasonable," I thought to myself.

"But," she continued, "Mrs. Bird told me to let young Mr. Noble up the
stairs so 't he could peek in the door, and as you 're an old friend I
hev n't no objections to your goin' up softly and peekin' in with him
till Miss Pauline 's through,--it won't be long, 'm."

My curiosity was aroused by this time, and I came to the conclusion
that "peekin' in the door" of Paradise with "young Mr. Noble" would be
better than nothing; so up I went, like a thief in the night.

The room was at the head of the stairs, and one of the doors was open,
and had a heavy portiere hanging across it. Behind this was young Mr.
Noble, "peekin'" most greedily, together with a middle-aged gentleman
not described by the voluble parlor maid. They did n't seem to notice
me; they were otherwise occupied, or perhaps they thought me one of the
nurses or mothers. I had heard the sound of a piano as I crossed the
hall, but it was still now. I crept behind young Mr. Noble, and took a
good "peek" into Paradise.

It was a very large apartment, one that looked as if it might have been
built for a ball-room; at least, there was a wide, cushioned bench
running around three sides of it, close to the wall. On one side,
behind some black and gold Japanese screens, where they could hear and
not be seen, sat a row of silent, capped and aproned nurse-maids and
bonneted mammas. Mrs. Bird was among them, lovely and serene as an
angel still, though she has had her troubles. There was a great
fireplace in the room, but it was banked up with purple and white
lilacs. There was a bowl of the same flowers on the grand piano, and a
clump of bushes sketched in chalk on a blackboard. Just then a lovely
young girl walked from the piano and took a low chair in front of the
fireplace.

Before her there were grouped ever so many children, twenty-five or
thirty, perhaps. The tots in the front rows were cosy and comfortable
on piles of cushions, and the seven or eight year olds in the back row
were in seats a little higher. Each child had a sprig of lilac in its
hand. The young girl wore a soft white dress with lavender flowers
scattered all over it, and a great bunch of the flowers in her belt.

She was a lovely creature! At least, I believe she was. I have an
indistinct remembrance that her enemies (if she has any) might call her
hair red; b