"Hush! Barbe, don't call!" entreated Sandy.
"Barbedie good girl," announced the baby in a loud voice, lifting herself on tip-toe to see the passer-by.
Mrs. Lytchett's ears were good, and, besides, she felt certain at this point that her eyes had seen something fluttering. She stepped off the pathway, and examined a tomb near.
"Hush!--sh--sh!" cautioned David, holding up his finger to his mouth--a movement which so pleased Barbe that she proceeded to copy it.
Mrs. Lytchett passed on; the danger was over. David lifted up the baby and carried her into a little octagon room near by, built in the wall of the cathedral, and used frequently as a workroom or office.
Here the boys were at home. It was the head-quarters of their greatest friends--the masons engaged on the renovations always in progress at the cathedral.
In the grate were the slowly dying embers of a fire, and the room was empty.
"Mr. Galton ain't locked up yet, knowed he wouldn't," said Sandy. "He likes his tea punctual--'spects it's time. Now, Barbe, come an' get done."
Whilst David was holding the baby to the fire, Sandy disappeared, presently returning with an excited face.
"They've nearly done," he said. "It's prime up there. Seems to me, we'd best settle as soon as possible."
"This baby won't get dry," said David, gloomily. "Just look at her!"
"I know," said Sandy, regarding the bedraggled Barbe. "We'll take it off an' leave it here. An' I'll fetch her somefink. Sure to be somefink stored in Margie's basket--know Orme made holes in himself last week."
So it happened that it was a little blue girl--clad in one of Orme's shabbiest overalls--who met Mrs. Bethune's returning chair, and was lifted to her knee for a "yide."
"But what has happened? where are her own clothes?" Mrs. Bethune asked, recognising the substitute.
"We thought they were just a little damp," said Sandy in explanation, climbing up the back of the chair to kiss his mother.
"Good boy, Sandy!" said his mother, "to take care of her."
"But how did they get damp?" asked Marjorie suspiciously.
"Just a little water p'raps got on them," he replied, feeling the tone unkind after his mother's praise.
"Then you have been in mischief?" asked Marjorie.
"Barbedie walked in er water," the baby replied, as if she had been doing a good work.