“Let us go to the nursery, Lucy, and send the girl out.  I have come specially to have a long talk with you about Harry and her absence will be a good thing.”

Then he took her hand and they went together to a large room upstairs.  There was a bright fire burning on this hearth and a large fur rug before it.  A pretty bassinet, in which a lovely girl-baby was sleeping, was on one side of the hearth and Lucy’s low nursing-chair on the other side, and a little round table set ready for tea in the center.  A snow-white bed in a distant corner held the two boys, Stephen and Ralph, who were fast asleep.  John stooped first to the baby, and kissed it, and Lucy said, “I have called her Agnes.  It was my mother’s name when she was on earth.  Do you think they call her Agnes in heaven, John?”

"He hath called thee by thy name, is one of the tokens given us of God’s fatherhood, Lucy.”

“Well, John, a father must care what his children are called—­if he cares for the children.”

“Yes, we may be sure of that.”  As he spoke, he was standing by the sleeping boys.  He loved both, but he loved Stephen, the elder, with an extraordinary affection.  And as he looked at the sleeping child, the boy opened his eyes.  Then a beautiful smile illumined his face, a delightful cry of wonder and joy parted his lips, and he held out his arms to John.  Without a moment’s hesitation, John lifted him.

“Dear little Stephen!” he said.  “I wish you were a man!”

“Then I would always stay with you, Uncle.”

“Yes, yes!  Now you must go to sleep and tomorrow I will take you to the Hippodrome.”

“And Ralph, too?”

“To be sure, Ralph goes, too.”  Then he tenderly laid Stephen back in bed and watched Lucy from the fireside.  She talked softly to him, as she went about the room, attending to those details of forethought of which mothers have the secret.  He watched her putting everything in place with silent pleasure.  He noted her deft, clever ways, the exquisite neatness of her dress, her small feet so trigly shod, her lovely face bending over the most trivial duty with a smile of sweet contentment; and he could not help thinking hopefully of Harry.  Indeed her atmosphere was so afar from whatever was evil or sorrowful that John wondered how he was to begin a conversation which must be a disturbance.

Presently the room was in perfect order, and the children asleep; then she touched a bell, but no one answered it.  After waiting a few minutes, she said, “John, the girl has evidently gone out.  I must go down for my supper tray.  In five minutes I will be back.”

“I will go with you.”

“Thank you!  When Harry is not home, I like to eat my last meal beside the sleeping children.  Then I can take a book and read leisurely, so the hours pass pleasantly away.”

“Is Harry generally late?”

“He has to be late.  Very often his song is the last on the program.  Here is the tray.  It is all ready—­except your cup and plate.  You will take a cup of tea with me, John?”