ummer Sunday afternoon she came to the Lehntmans',
much dressed up in her new, brick red, silk waist trimmed with broad
black beaded braid, a dark cloth skirt and a new stiff, shiny, black
straw hat, trimmed with colored ribbons and a bird. She had on new
gloves, and a feather boa about her neck.

Her spare, thin, awkward body and her worn, pale yellow face though
lit up now with the pleasant summer sun made a queer discord with the
brightness of her clothes.

She came to the Lehntman house, where she had not been for several
days, and opening the door that is always left unlatched in the houses
of the lower middle class in the pleasant cities of the South, she
found Julia in the family sitting-room alone.

"Well, Julia, where is your mamma?" Anna asked. "Ma is out but come
in, Miss Annie, and look at our new brother." "What you talk so
foolish for Julia," said Anna sitting down. "I ain't talkin' foolish,
Miss Annie. Didn't you know mamma has just adopted a cute, nice little
baby boy?" "You talk so crazy, Julia, you ought to know better than
to say such things." Julia turned sullen. "All right Miss Annie,
you don't need to believe what I say, but the little baby is in the
kitchen and ma will tell you herself when she comes in."

It sounded most fantastic, but Julia had an air of truth and Mrs.
Lehntman was capable of doing stranger things. Anna was disturbed.
"What you mean Julia," she said. "I don't mean nothin' Miss Annie,
you don't believe the baby is in there, well you can go and see it for
yourself."

Anna went into the kitchen. A baby was there all right enough, and a
lusty little boy he seemed. He was very tight asleep in a basket that
stood in the corner by the open door.

"You mean your mamma is just letting him stay here a little while,"
Anna said to Julia who had followed her into the kitchen to see Miss
Annie get real mad. "No that ain't it Miss Annie. The mother was that
girl, Lily that came from Bishop's place out in the country, and she
don't want no children, and ma liked the little boy so much, she said
she'd keep him here and adopt him for her own child."

Anna, for once, was fairly dumb with astonishment and rage. The front
door slammed.

"There's ma now," cried Julia in an uneasy triumph, for she was not
quite certain in her mind which side of the question she was on.

"There's ma now, and you can ask her for yourself if I ain't told you
true."

Mrs. Lehntman came into the kitchen where