"Would you take a small—" she asked, perhaps with some mental reference to the remark that dowered her with the occasional charge of the future adopted Clegg. 

 "Well, I d'n' know. That's a very hard thing that comes up first of all every time 't I begin thinkin'. When most folks set out to adopt a baby, the main idea seems to be to try 'n' get 'em so young 't they can't never say for sure's you ain't their mother." 

 Mrs. Lathrop nodded approval, mute but emphatic, of the wisdom of her friend's views. 

 "But I ain't got none o' that foolish sort o' notions in me. I wouldn't be its mother, 'n' 'f there was n't no one else to tell it so Mr. Kimball 'd rejoice to the first time I sent it down town alone. It's nigh to impossible to keep nothin' in the town with Mr. Kimball. A man f'rever talkin' like that 's bound to tell everythin' sooner or later, 'n' I never was one to set any great store o' faith on a talker. When I don't want the whole town to know 't I'm layin' in rat-poison I buy of Shores, 'n' when I get a new dress I buy o' Kimball. I don't want my rats talked about 'n' I don't mind my dress. For which same reason I sh'll make no try 't foolin' my baby. I'll be content if it cooes. I remember Mrs. Macy's sayin' once 't a baby was sweetest when it cooes, 'n' I don't want to miss nothin', 'n' we ain't never kep' doves for me to be dead-sick o' the noise, so I want the cooin' age. I think it'll be pleasant comin' home days to hear the baby cooin', 'n' 'f it cooes too loud when I'm away you c'n always come over 'n' see if it's rolled anywhere. I c'n see that, generally speaking, it's a wise thing that folks jus' have to take 'em as they come, because when it's all for you to choose you want so much 't like 's not I can't be suited after all. It's goin' to be pretty hard decidin', 'n' when I've done decidin' it's goin' to be pretty hard findin' a baby that's all 't I've decided; 'n' then, if I find it,—then comes the raisin' of it, 'n' I espect that 'll be suthin' jus' awful." 

 "How was you goin' to find—" Mrs. Lathrop asked. 

 "Well, I've got to go to town to look at winter coats, 'n' I thought 't when I'd found what I wanted I'd jus' glance through two or three orphan asylums afore comin' home." 

 Mrs. Lathrop pinned the purple to the yellow and shut one eye so as to judge of the combination from the single standpoint of the other. She seemed to be gradually regaining her normal state of abnormal calmness. 

 "I 

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