accustomed to me. Poor Jane! I wish I could have got here in time to see her, she and I were such friends long ago. We were far more intimate and confidential than ever her and Charlotte was. Charlotte knows that, too!”
The vim with which Miss Rosetta snapped this out rather amazed Mrs. Gordon, who couldn’t understand it at all. But she took Miss Rosetta upstairs to the room where the baby was sleeping.
“Oh, the little darling,” cried Miss Rosetta, all her old maidishness and oddity falling away from her like a garment, and all her innate and denied motherhood shining out in her face like a transforming illumination. “Oh, the sweet, dear, pretty little thing!”
The baby was a darling—a six-months’ old beauty with little golden ringlets curling and glistening all over its tiny head. As Miss Rosetta hung over it, it opened its eyes and then held out its tiny hands to her with a gurgle of confidence.
“Oh, you sweetest!” said Miss Rosctta rapturously, gathering it up in her arms. “You belong to me, darling — never, never, to that under-handed Charlotte! What is its name, Mrs. Gordon?”
“It wasn't named,” said Mrs. Gordon. “Guess you’ll have to name it yourself, Miss Ellis.”
“Camilia Jane,” said Miss Rosetta without a moment’s hesitation. “Jane after its mother, of
