"It's a baby!" Gregory said, wild with excitement. "A real baby!"

Janet, who had been behind, sprang forward as she heard these remarkable
words, and easily reached the bundle first.

"So it is," she exclaimed, picking it tenderly up and opening the wraps
round its face.

It was a swarthy mite, very tightly bound into its clothes.

"What an extraordinary thing!" said Mary. "Fancy finding a baby on the road!"

"It has probably been abandoned," said Hester. "Very likely it is of noble
birth, and was stolen by gipsies and stained brown, and now they are afraid
of pursuit and have left it."

"How could it be of noble birth?" Gregory asked. "Look how hideous it is!"

"Looks have nothing to do with high lineage," said Hester. "There have been
very ugly kings."

"It isn't hideous," said Janet. "It's a perfect darling. But what are we to
do with it?"

"If it's a boy," said Gregory, "let's keep it and make it into a long-stop.
We want one badly." (Gregory, as I have said, hated fielding.)

"Let's adopt it," said Hester. "Mother often says how she wishes we were
still babies."