“I liked her.  She seemed a well-bred person, and her voice is much like Genevra’s.”

Wilford turned his eyes quickly upon his mother, who continued: 

“I did not think of her, it is true, until Miss Hazelton inquired about baby’s name, and said she understood from Katy that it was to be Genevra.  Then it came to me whose her voice was like.  Genevra’s, you know, was very musical.”

“Yes,” Wilford answered, and in his eyes there was a look of pain, such as thoughts of Genevra always brought.

She was in his mind when he ran up his father’s steps, not Genevra living, but Genevra dead—­she who slept in that lone corner of the churchyard across the sea.  “Genevra Lambert, aged twenty-two,” and not Genevra, aged nearly thirty-two, if she had been still living.  Kindly, regretfully, he always spoke of her now, separating her entirely from the little fairy who was mistress of his house and love—­Katy, who was preferred before Genevra, and to whom no wrong was done, he thought, by his sad memories of the beautiful English girl, whose grave was at St. Mary’s, and whose picture was so securely hidden from every eye save his own.  He never liked to talk of her now, and he changed the subject at once, asking when it would be best to send his child away.

“Miss Hazelton is ready any time, and so I decided upon the day after to-morrow—­that will be Saturday—­thus giving Katy the benefit of Sunday in which to get over it and recover her usual spirits.”

“You are sure it is right?” Wilford asked, for now that the time drew near when the little crib at home would be empty, the nursery desolate, with no fretful, plaintive wail to annoy and worry him, he began to feel that after all that cry was not so very vexing as he had imagined it to be; that he might miss it when it was gone, and wish back the little creature which had been so greatly in his way.

Besides this, there was a sense of injustice to Katy.  Perhaps he had not been considerate enough of her feelings; at all events, his mother’s arranging the time of baby’s departure looked like ignoring Katy altogether, and he ventured a remonstrance.  But his mother soon convinced him of her infallible judgment; not only in that matter, but in all others pertaining to his household; and so with his good opinion of himself restored, he went home to where Katy waited for him, with her baby in her lap, both tastefully attired, and making a most lovely picture.  Wilford kissed them both, and took his daughter in his arms, an act he had not often been guilty of, for baby tending was not altogether to his taste.

In the dark hours of agony which came to him afterward, he remembered that night, feeling again the touch of the velvet cheek and the warmth of the faint breath which floated across his face as he held his little girl for a moment to it, laughing at Katy’s distress because “his whiskers scratched it.”

It was strange how much confidence Katy had in Marian Hazelton, and how the fact that she was going to New London reconciled her to the plan, making her even cheerful during the last day of baby’s stay at home.  But as the daylight waned and the night came on, a shadow began to steal across her sunny face, and her step was slower as it went up the stairs to the nursery, while only herself that night could disrobe the little creature and hush it into sleep.