there?"

"This is Rosabel," said Patty, gravely, as she held the baby up to view.

CHAPTER XIX

ROSABEL

"Rosabel who?" exclaimed Nan, as Patty came up on the verandah with the
baby in her arms.

"I don't know, I'm sure. You may call her Rosabel anything you like. We
picked her up by the wayside."

"Yes," said Dick Phelps, who had followed Patty up the steps. "Miss
Rosabel seemed lonely without anyone to talk to, so we brought her back
here to visit you."

"You must be crazy!" cried Nan, "but what a cunning baby it is! Let me
take her."

Nan took the good-natured little midget and sat down in a verandah
rocker, with the baby in her arms.

"Tell a straight story, Patty," said her father, "is it one of the
neighbour's children, or did you kidnap it?"

"Neither," said Patty, turning to her father; "we found the baby lying
right near the edge of a wood, in plain sight from the road. And there
was nobody around, and Papa, I just know that the child's wretch of a
mother deserted it, and left it there to die!"

"Nonsense," said her father. "Mothers don't leave their little ones
around as carelessly as that."

"Well, what else could it be?" said Patty. "There was the baby all alone,
smiling and talking to herself, and no one anywhere near, although we
waited for some time."

"It does seem strange," said Mr. Fairfield, "perhaps the mother did mean
to desert the child, but if so, she was probably peeping from some
hiding-place, to make sure that she approved of the people who took it."

"Well," said Mr. Phelps, "she evidently thought we were all right; at any
rate she made no objection."

"But isn't it awful," said Nan, "to think of anybody deserting a dear
little thing like this. Why, the wild animals might have eaten her up."

"Of course they might," said Mr. Phelps, gravely, "the tigers and wolves
that abound on Long Island are of the most ferocious type."

"Well, anyway," said Patty, "something dreadful might have happened to
her."

"It may yet," said Mr. Phelps cheerfully, "when we take her back
to-morrow and put her in the place we found her. For I don't suppose you
intend to keep Miss Rosabel, do you?"

"I don't know," said Patty, "but I know one thing, we certainly won't put
her back where we found her. What shall we do with her, Papa?"

"I don't know, my child, she's your find, and I suppose it's a case of
'findings is keepings.'"

"Of course we can't keep her," said Patty, "how ridic