The Incubator Baby
had a chronic aversion to ruffles and whose firm belief seemed to be that only the ugly was hygienic. Marjorie wore health garments that looked like misfit flour sacks, and health shoes that made people stop and stare at her feet. Her garb was so highly healthful that Marjorie should have bloomed like a rose, but she began to droop visibly. She became pale and peevish and would not eat her bran mash and Infant's Delight puddings. By day she was listless and by night she slept fitfully and awakened with screams. She had no appetite. Every one was sorry for her and did little things to please her—on the sly. 

 In any other child the doctor would at once have suspected a wrong diet, but Marjorie's committee had arranged her diet and it was beyond criticism. The doctor suggested that perhaps incubator babies were subject to such declines. One of the strictest rules of the committee-arranged diet was “no sweets.” Candy was absolutely forbidden. On this point the committee was most positive. 

 Miss Vickers considered this a shocking cruelty. She lived largely on chocolate creams and considered a candyless world pathetic. She pitied Marjorie, and occasionally, when no one was looking, she smuggled a fat chocolate into Marjorie's willing mouth. Miss Vickers believed that a little candy was good for a child, but she was careful not to give Marjorie more than she thought was good for her. 

 Mr. Fielding was of the same opinion. He could not imagine an unsweetened childhood, and whenever he visited the nursery he smuggled in a few soft bonbons—the kind that dissolve in the mouth and leave no clews. Marjorie approved. She had a capacity for candy that was phenomenal. One morning she and her mother were taking a little toddle down the street when they passed one of those seductive candy shops in which the basely knowing proprietor has the show windows cut so low that the tempting display is very near the level of a two-year-old's mouth. 

 Marjorie stopped. She pushed her nose into flatness against the window and gloated. She edged back and forth from one side, where there were chocolate creams, to the other, where there were pink bonbons, and her nose in its course made a clean streak on the dusty window glass. She paused hesitatingly before the floury marshmallows, passed the cakes of flat chocolate without qualms, and settled firmly and finally before the pink bonbons. 

 She refused to leave the beautiful spot. When Mrs. Fielding tried to draw her away, her nose remained against the glass and she screamed. Mrs. Fielding 
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