“He won’t, oh, He won’t,” Katy had said, when once she suggested the possibility, and in the eyes usually so soft and gentle there was a fierce gleam, as Katy hugged her baby closer to her, and said: 

“God does not willfully torment us.  He will not take my baby, when my whole life would die with it.  I had almost forgotten to pray, there was so much else to do, till baby came, but now I never go to sleep at night or waken in the morning, that there does not come a prayer of thanks for baby given to me.  I could hardly love God if He took her away.”

There was a chill feeling at Helen’s heart as she listened to her sister and then glanced at the baby so passionately loved.  In time it would be pretty, for it had Katy’s perfect features, and the hair just beginning to grow was a soft, golden brown; but it was too small now, too puny to be handsome, while in its eyes there was a scared, hunted kind of look, which chafed Wilford more than aught else could have done, for that was the look which had crept into Katy’s eyes at Newport when she found she was not going home.  Still it was a Cameron, of royal lineage, loved at least by four, its mother, its grandfather, Helen and Jamie, while the others looked forward to a time when they should be proud of it, even if they were not so now.

Many discussions had been held at the elder Cameron’s concerning its name, Mrs. Cameron deciding finally that it should bear her own, Margaret Augusta, while Juno advocated that of Rose Marie, inasmuch as their new clergyman would Frenchify the pronunciation so perfectly, rolling the “r,” and placing so much accent on the last syllable.  At this the Father Cameron swore as cussed nonsense—­“better call it Jemima, a grand sight, than saddle it with such a silly name as Rose Mah-ree, with a roll to the ‘r,’” and with another oath the disgusted old man departed, while Bell suggested that Katy might wish to have a voice in naming her own child.

This was a possibility that had formed no part of Mrs. Cameron’s thoughts, or Juno’s.  Of course Katy would acquiesce in whatever Wilford said was best, and he always thought as they did.  Consequently there would be no trouble whatever.  It was time the child had a name—­time it wore the elegant christening robe, Mrs. Cameron’s gift, which cost more money than would have fed a hungry family for weeks.  The matter must be decided, and so with a view of deciding it a family dinner party was held at No. ——­ Fifth Avenue, the day succeeding the call on Marian Hazleton.

Very pure and beautiful Katy looked as she once more took her old place in the chair they called hers at Father Cameron’s, because it was the one she had always preferred to any other—­a large, motherly easy-chair, which took in nearly the whole of her petite figure, and against whose soft cushioned back she leaned her curly head with a pretty air of importance, as after dinner was over, she came back to the parlor with the other ladies, waiting for the gentlemen to join them, when they were to talk up baby’s name.