When a romper was finished it had to be tried on that very minute. She would whisk up the atom from the hammock where he lay kicking, and slip him into it, holding him high for Peter to admire.
"He's a cherub done in bronze," said Peter, one day. "Here, give him to me." And later, as he perched him on his shoulder and tickled his ribs until he squirmed with glee he announced, "If I wasn't a homeless bachelor I'd take him off your hands in about two minutes."
"What's that?" shouted Doctor Fuller, coming down the street. "Did you say anything about re-adoption? Well, you might as well know now that Mrs. Fuller and I intend taking Pancho off Leerie's hands as soon as she's ready to go back to work again. Aren't you getting lazy, Leerie?"
For once Sheila failed to respond in kind to the doctor's chaffing. All the shine faded out of her eyes. "Can't believe two months have gone--a month for a letter to go, a month for an answer to come. I'm afraid none of us will keep him very much longer."
"Don't worry, they won't want him back. Besides, they've forfeited their right to him," the old doctor snorted, indignantly.
[Illustration: Holding him high for Peter to admire]
"Not legally. When the letter comes, you'll see." There was none of the anticipated delight in Sheila's voice that had been there on that first night when she had laid her plans and sworn Father O'Friel into backing her up. Her voice was as colorless as her eyes were dull; for some miraculous reason the life and inner light that seemed such an inseparable part of her had suddenly gone out. She reached up and removed the atom from Peter's shoulder.
Hennessy, who had joined the group, was the last to speak. "Sure it's mortial good of both ye gentlemen to lift the throuble o' raisin' the wee one off Miss Leerie, but if any one lifts it, it's Marm an' me. We had that settled the next morning after we fetched him over an' knew 'twas the real one we'd got, after all."
"The real one? What do you mean by that?" The doctor looked puzzled.
Through the first days of September Sheila waited with feverish anxiety. The hours spent on the vine-covered porch with the atom, asleep or awake, for steady company, and Peter for occasional, passed all too quickly. For the first time in her life Sheila wished days back; she would have put a checking hand on time had she had the power. Then just as she was making up her mind that her fear was for nothing, that her plans had gloriously failed and Pancho was to be hers for all time, the wretched news came. Peter brought it, hurrying hatless down the street, and Sheila, knowing in her heart what had happened, went down the steps to meet him.