inted a probation skirt to look after the crowd of
us, and we got t' toe the mark."

"Glory be!" I ejaculated. "I don't know what I shall do with him. I
shall have to bring him down with me every morning, and perhaps you can
make a sporting editor out of him."

"Nix. Not with that forehead. He's a high-brow. We'll make him dramatic
critic. In the meantime, I'll be little fairy godmother, an' if you'll
get on your bonnet I'll stake you and the young 'un to strawberry
shortcake an' chocolate ice cream."

So it happened that a wondering Frau Knapf and a sympathetic Frau
Nirlanger were called in for consultation an hour later. Bennie was
ensconced in my room, very wide-eyed and wondering, but quite content.
With the entrance of Frau Nirlanger the consultation was somewhat
disturbed. She made a quick rush at him and gathered him in her hungry
arms.

"Du baby du!" she cried. "Du Kleiner! And she was down on her knees,
and somehow her figure had melted into delicious mother-curves, with
Bennie's head just fitting into that most gracious one between her
shoulder and breast. She cooed to him in a babble of French and German
and English, calling him her lee-tel Oscar. Bennie seemed miraculously
to understand. Perhaps he was becoming accustomed to having strange
ladies snatch him to their breasts.

"So," said Frau Nirlanger, looking up at us. "Is he not sweet? He shall
be my lee-tel boy, nicht? For one small year he shall be my own boy.
Ach, I am but lonely all the long day here in this strange land. You
will let me care for him, nicht? And Konrad, he will be very angry, but
that shall make no bit of difference. Eh, Oscar?"

And so the thing was settled, and an hour later three anxious-browed
women were debating the weighty question of eggs or bread-and-milk for
Bennie's supper. Frau Nirlanger was for soft-boiled eggs as being none
too heavy after orphan asylum fare; I was for bread-and-milk, that being
the prescribed supper dish for all the orphans and waifs that I had ever
read about, from "The Wide, Wide World" to "Helen's Babies," and back
again. Frau Knapf was for both eggs and bread-and-milk with a dash
of meat and potatoes thrown in for good measure, and a slice or so of
Kuchen on the side. We compromised on one egg, one glass of milk, and
a slice of lavishly buttered bread, and jelly. It was a clean, sweet,
sleepy-eyed Bennie that we tucked between the sheets. We three women
stood looking down at him as he lay there