I executed her commands faithfully. By the time I returned the child was
lying on her lap clean and dry--a fine baby I thought. Ethelwyn went on
talking to her, and praising her as if she had not only been the finest
specimen of mortality in the world, but her own child to boot. She got her
to take a few spoonfuls of milk and water, and then the little thing fell
fast asleep.

Ethelwyn's nursing days were not so far gone by that she did not know where
her baby's clothes were. She gave me the child, and going to a wardrobe
in the room brought out some night-things, and put them on. I could not
understand in the least why the sleeping darling must be indued with little
chemise, and flannel, and nightgown, and I do not know what all, requiring
a, world of nice care, and a hundred turnings to and fro, now on its little
stomach, now on its back, now sitting up, now lying down, when it would
have slept just as well, and I venture to think much more comfortably,
if laid in blankets and well covered over. But I had never ventured to
interfere with any of my own children, devoutly believing up to this
moment, though in a dim unquestioning way, that there must be some hidden
feminine wisdom in the whole process; and now that I had begun to question
it, I found that my opportunity had long gone by, if I had ever had one.
And after all there may be some reason for it, though I confess I do
strongly suspect that all these matters are so wonderfully complicated
in order that the girl left in the woman may have her heart's content of
playing with her doll; just as the woman hid in the girl expends no end of
lovely affection upon the dull stupidity of wooden cheeks and a body of
sawdust. But it was a delight to my heart to see how Ethelwyn could not be
satisfied without treating the foundling in precisely the same fashion as
one of her own. And if this was a necessary preparation for what, should
follow, I would be the very last to complain of it.