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Cold had no terrors for her; she was clad, feet and all, in an Esquimaux garment of brilliant pink flannel of Mrs. Moriarty’s contriving.

And still the doctor did not come down. Esther climbed to the floor and noiselessly unlocked the door. In the hall a deadly quiet served as a background for Mr. Finkelstein’s snoring. And then Esther’s summons came. Shrill and clear from the darkness above dropped the cry of a new-born child. Hers! The Stork had blundered again.

“Oh, my!” wailed Esther, “ain’t Storks the fools? In all my world I ain’t never seen how he makes mistakes. I told him just as plain: Second Floor Front. Und extra he goes und maybe wakes up the lady mit the from-gold hair over it. She’s got it hard enough ‘out no babies yelling.”

As Esther toiled toward the sound, she realized that yet another mistake had been made, it was ‘a loud one.’ Now what would her father say–and Mrs. Moriarty? But this was no time for such questioning. Her plain duty was to collect her property and prevent its disturbing the whole house.

When she reached her friend’s room she found that the disturbance had taken place and was still in progress. The nurse, the doctor, and the Top Floor Front were gathered about the bed, presumably reassuring their patient, and upon a pillow thrown into a rocking-chair the Stork had left Esther’s gold-haired brother.

Oh! it was easy, fatally easy, to recognize the answer to her petition! The noise subsided as Esther noiselessly pattered over to it, and from an end of its roll of flannel a bright head projected. Esther picked it up and beat a hasty retreat unobserved by the workers at the bedside. Down the dark stairs she passed with her burden, and into the drawing-room again. She snuggled down beside it in her crib and for a few ecstatic moments held it in her arms. The clock struck four, and, as Esther quivered and listened still for the descent of the doctor, the baby raised up its voice again in one prolonged and breathless yell. Jacob was beside the crib in an instant and had his daughter in his arms.

“What is it?” he questioned wildly. “Where is it? What hurt thee?” And then his heart too skipped a beat, for he found that though he had Esther in his arms he had left her voice in the crib.

“It ain’t me,” she finally managed to assure him. “It’s mine little brother what I gets out of the Central Park.”

Lights, Mrs. Moriarty, explanations, and expostulations followed.

“I tells that Stork,” Esther ended, “I tells him I ain’t got no families und no aunties, und I needs a baby, und I has a bed ready. It is mine baby. Storks is crazy fools!”

But the inexorable John Nolan set out upon his mission of restitution. Esther, puzzled, heart-broken, argumentative, sped on before, and reached, not without some skirmishing, the side of the golden-haired lady, while her father was still struggling with the darkness and his unaccustomed burden.

And then the miracles began. The lady heard a step upon the stairs and a great radiance fell upon her. Wonder, incredulity, and joy shone in her lovely eyes. The doctor’s hand was on her wrist. The nurse’s admonitions were in her ears. But she raised herself among her pillows and watched the turn of the stairs where a shaft of light streamed through the open door.

Esther’s father came out of the darkness, and the lady wrenched her hand from the doctor and stretched both her arms toward the oncoming figure, and “Jacob,” said she, and quite gently fainted into the doctor’s arms.

“No excitement, no fuss,” commanded that authority. “She’s all right, coming round in a minute. Here, stand there. Speak naturally to her. There, she’s coming now.”

“Why, Esther,” said Jacob quietly in soft Hungarian, “I’ve been wondering where you were.”

The lady mit the from-gold hair laid her other hand on his, smiled a little wearily, and instantly dropped asleep.

“You ain’t asked her whose is that baby,” his daughter whispered to him. “You ain’t asked her did she write letters on that Stork?”

“I guess it’s our baby all right,” her father answered. “You just carry it down and put it in the bed that’s been waiting for it. Tell Mrs. Moriarty that your auntie was living here all the time.”

“Mine auntie!” cried Esther. “Mine auntie! My, but Storks is smart!” she gasped repentantly.