She looked at David. His face now wore an expression of absolute vacuity. She wondered if by any possibility it would be taken for penitence. She hoped it might, as it certainly expressed nothing else. Laying her hand on his shoulder--after all, he was only nine, and could not have done much mischief, even if he had behaved badly--Marjorie gave him a gentle push forward.
"My little brother is sorry," she began, as the dark eyes, smiling now, were uplifted from the note.
But David, beating off her hand, said fiercely, "I'm not!"
"Oh, David!" said Marjorie, helplessly. "Then, if you aren't, why did we--you come?" a sudden passion in her tone.
"Margie! Margie!" called the cheerful voice of Sandy. And Marjorie turned her eyes hopefully to the speaker. He, at least, would not fail her in this emergency--he was always ready to say something nice.
Sandy was staggering towards them laden with the baby. His cap had fallen off, and she was alternately thumping his tight curls and laying her face down upon them in gurgling delight. This living head, with its silky adornments, was quite a new sort of toy in her hitherto child-solitary life.
Mr. Pelham made an alarmed step forward. He expected nothing less than the sudden destruction of his baby. But Sandy, grasping her tightly with both sturdy arms, eluded his outstretched hand and went on to Marjorie.
"Ain't she a nice baby, Margie? She's a girl. Don't you wish we'd got a girl 'stead of on'y boys? Can I take this'n home?" he demanded, suddenly fixing brilliant blue eyes on the baby's owner.
"Oh, Sandy, Sandy! are you as artless as you seem?" thought Marjorie, watching with sympathy the magnetic change on the father's face as he looked down at his child.
"I am sorry. I can't spare her," he said gently, looking kindly at the eager beggar.
"Can't you?" disappointedly; "I should like her ever so."
"Me, too," cried Orme, standing by with straddled legs and wide-open eyes fixed on Mr. Pelham.
"Me yike her ever so," chimed in Ross, ambling up and joining the group, murmuring, as no one attended to him, that he would carry her in his two arms.
[Illustration: Sandy was staggering towards them laden with the baby.]
In her dark, flashing beauty this baby, with her vivid face, her quick movements, her vitality, her curious coquetry of advance and withdrawal, was a revelation to the little boys. Only David--silent and superior--still held aloof, till the baby suddenly saw him and claimed him for another slave.