This page needs to be proofread.
THE PROVINCE OF A FRIEND
435

job that I was looking for. Maybe something alive that will put in a demand will be the thing that will tide me over. Go and get your baby, Jamie, and bring him to me.”

Jamie arose and went to the telephone. He called Mrs. Meredith and asked to have the baby brought home. Margaret Cameron had returned and was willing to undertake his care. In only a short time a small brown car appeared down the street. Jamie stood at the gate and watched it coming. The car was the colour of the hair of the woman who drove it. Her eyes, wide and bright, shone out smilingly. On the front seat beside her sat the little Scout, carefully holding the bundle. Jamie looked at it curiously and wondered what he would think and what he would feel if that child were truly his.

In an effort to spare Margaret Cameron he stretched his arms for the baby, but Mrs. Meredith was a genial person. She had to deliver the baby herself. She had to spread out his wardrobe and explain how she had used things. She was dubious as to whether Margaret Cameron, who had not had a baby in more than twenty years, was going to know enough to oil a baby and put the right kind of clothing on it and handle it properly in the present year of our Lord. Twenty years is a long stretch, and science figures out numerous things in that length of time. She was so full of good nature, so full of high spirits, so pleased with herself for having taken care of the baby until Margaret Cameron came, that she did not notice the white, drawn face of the woman, a woman whom she