And to better the smile, he had the jolliest little chuckle that ever came through a pair of baby lips.
He came trotting up to the suit case which Marie had spread wide open on the bed, stood up on his tippy toes, and peered in.

The quirky smile was twitching his lips, and the look he turned toward Marie's back was full of twinkle.

He reached into the suit case, clutched a clean handkerchief and blew his nose with solemn precision; put the handkerchief back all crumpled, grabbed a silk stocking and drew it around his neck, and was straining to reach his little red Brownie cap when Marie turned and caught him up in her arms.
"No, no, Lovin Child! Baby mustn't.

Marie is going to take her lovin' baby boy to find--" She glanced hastily over her shoulder to make sure there was no one to hear, buried her face in the baby's fat neck and whispered the wonder, "-- to find hims daddy Bud! Does Lovin Man want to see hims daddy Bud?
I bet he does want! I bet hims daddy Bud will be glad--Now you sit right still, and Marie will get him a cracker, an' then he can watch Marie pack him little shirt, and hims little bunny suit, and hims wooh-wooh, and hims 'tockins--" It is a pity that Bud could not have seen the two of them in the next hour, wherein Marie flew to her hopeful task of packing her suit case, and Lovin Child was quite as busy pulling things out of it, and getting stepped on, and having to be comforted, and insisting upon having on his bunny suit, and then howling to go before Marie was ready.

Bud would have learned enough to ease the ache in his heart--enough to humble him and fill him with an abiding reverence for a love that will live, as Marie's had lived, on bitterness and regret.
Nearly distracted under the lash of her own eagerness and the fear that her mother would return too soon and bully her into giving up her wild plan, Marie, carrying Lovin Child on one arm and lugging the suit case in the other hand, and half running, managed to catch a street car and climb aboard all out of breath and with her hat tilted over one ear.
She deposited the baby on the seat beside her, fumbled for a nickel, and asked the conductor pantingly if she would be in time to catch the four-five to the city.