CHAPTER XII.

THE PERFECT WORK OF PATIENCE.


A slender little treble was singing it over and over again in childish
sort, with so little appreciation of the meaning of the words that the
oddity of the ditty was the first thing to attract my attention to it.

"You'd better bide a wee, wee, wee!
Oh, you'd better bide a wee.
La, la, la, la, la, _la_,
You'd better bide a wee."

The elf was singing her dolly to sleep, swinging back and forth in her
little rocking-chair, the waxen face pressed against the warm pink cushion
of her own cheek, the yellow silk of curls palpitating with the owner's
vitality mingling with the lifeless floss of her darling's wig. The picture
was none the less charming because so common, but it was not in admiring
contemplation of it that I arrested my pen in the middle of a word, holding
it thus an inch or two above the paper in position to resume the rapid rush
along the sheet it had kept up for ten minutes and more. I mused a moment.
Then, with the involuntary shake one gives his cranium when he has a
ringing in his ears, I finished the sentence:--"sideration, I cannot but
think that patience has had her perfect work."

"You'd better bide a wee!"

lisped the baby's song.