“’Tis the last time, you know,” she said to Kirby, who readily yielded her post and went out, leaving the young mother and child alone.

Mournfully sad and sweet was the lullaby Katy sang, and Helen, in the hall, listening to the low, sad moaning, half prayer, half benediction, likened it to a farewell between the living and the dead.  Half an hour later, when she glanced into the room, lighted only by the moonbeams, baby was sleeping in her crib, which Katy knelt beside, her face buried in her hands, and her form quivering with the sobs she tried to smother as she softly prayed that her darling might come back again; that God would keep the little child and forgive the erring mother who had sinned so deeply since the time she used to pray in the home among the hills of Massachusetts.  She was very white next morning, and to Helen she seemed to be expanding into something more womanly, more mature, as she disciplined herself to bear the pain welling up so constantly from her heart, and at last overflowing in a flood of tears when Marian was announced as in the parlor below waiting for her charge.  Fortunately there was but little time for parting kisses and fond good-byes, for Marian had purposely waited as long as possible ere coming, and expedition was necessary if she reached the train.

It was Katy who made her baby ready, trusting her to no one else, and repelling with a kind of fierce decision all offers of assistance made either by Helen, Mrs. Cameron, Bell, or the nurse, who were present.  While Katy’s hands drew on the little bright, soft socks of wool, tied the hood of satin and lace, and fastened the scarlet cloak, her tears falling like rain as she met the loving, knowing look the baby was just learning to give her, half smiling, half cooing, as she bent her face down to it.

“Please all of you go out,” she said, when baby was ready—­“Wilford and all.  I had rather be alone.”

They granted her request, but Wilford stood beside the open door, listening while the mother bade farewell to her baby.

“Darling,” she murmured, “what will poor Katy do when you are gone, or what will comfort her as you have done?  Precious baby, my heart is breaking to give you up; but will the Father in Heaven who knows how much you are to me, keep you from harm and bring you back again?  Some time I’d give the world to keep you, but I cannot do it, for Wilford says that you must go, and Wilford is your father.”

At that moment Wilford Cameron would have given half his fortune to have kept his child for Katy’s sake, but it was now too late; the carriage was at the door, and Marian, whom no one had seen but Helen, was waiting in the hall, her thick green veil dropped before her face, and a muffler about her mouth as if suffering from the toothache.  Helen had asked if it were so, but Marian’s answer was prevented by the little procession filing down the stairs—­Mrs. Cameron and Bell, Wilford and Katy, who carried the baby herself, her face bent over it and her tears still dropping like rain.  But it was Wilford who put his child into Marian’s extended arms, forgetting in his excitement to notice aught in the new nurse except the long, green veil which was not raised at all, even when Katy said, pleadingly, “You will care for her, Marian, as if she were your own.”