I had told Olivia faithfully all my dilemmas with regard to Julia and the Careys; and she had seemed to listen with intense interest.  Certainly it was during those four bewildering and enchanted months immediately preceding our marriage, and no doubt the narrative was interwoven with many a topic of quite a different character.  However that might be, I was surprised to find that Olivia was not half as nervous and anxious as I felt, when we were nearing Guernsey on our visit to Julia and Captain Carey.  Julia had seen her but once, and that for a few minutes only in Sark.  On her account she had suffered the severest mortification a woman can undergo.  How would she receive my wife?

Olivia did not know, though I did, that Julia was somewhat frigid and distant in her manner, even while thoroughly hospitable in her welcome.  Olivia felt the hospitality; I felt the frigidity.  Julia called her “Mrs. Dobree.”  It was the first time she had been addressed by that name; and her blush and smile were exquisite to me, but they did not thaw Julia in the least.  I began to fear that there would be between them that strange, uncomfortable, east-wind coolness, which so often exists between the two women a man most loves.

It was the baby that did it.  Nothing on earth could be more charming, or more winning, than Olivia’s delight over that child.  It was the first baby she had ever had in her arms, she told us; and to see her sitting in the low rocking-chair, with her head bent over it, and to watch her dainty way of handling it, was quite a picture.  Captain Carey had an artist’s eye, and was in raptures; Julia had a mother’s eye, and was so won by Olivia’s admiration of her baby, that the thin crust of ice melted from her like the arctic snows before a Greenland summer.

I was not in the least surprised when, two days or so before we left Guernsey, Julia spoke to us with some solemnity of tone and expression.

“My dear, Olivia,” she said, “and you, Martin, Arnold and I would consider it a token of your friendship for us both, if you two would stand as sponsors for our child.”

“With the greatest pleasure, Julia,” I replied; and Olivia crossed the hearth to kiss her, and sat down on the sofa at her side.

“We have decided upon calling her Olivia,” continued Julia, stroking my wife’s hand with a caressing touch—­“Olivia Carey!  That sounds extremely well, and is quite new in the island.  I think it sounds even better than Olivia Dobree.”

As we all agreed that no name could sound better, or be newer in Guernsey, that question was immediately settled.  There was no time for delay, and the next morning we carried the child to church to be christened.  As we were returning homeward, Julia, whose face had worn its softest expression, pressed my arm with a clasp which made me look down upon her questioningly.  Her eyes were filled with tears, and her mouth quivered.  Olivia and Captain Carey were walking on in front, at a more rapid pace than ours, so that we were in fact alone.