Maria shook her head.  “I don’t want any, thank you, papa,” said she.

“Is there any cold meat, Josephine, do you know?”

Josephine said there was some cold roast beef.

“Well, bring Miss Maria a plate, with a slice of bread-and-butter, and some beef.”

“Have you had any supper yourself, dear?” Ida asked.

“I declare I don’t know, dear,” replied Harry, who looked unutterably worn and tired.  “No, I think not.  I don’t know when I could have got it.  No, I know I have not.”

“Josephine,” said Ida, “tell Annie to broil a piece of beefsteak for Mr. Edgham, and make a cup of tea.”

“Thank you, dear,” poor Harry said, gratefully.  Then he said to Maria, “Will you wait and have some hot beefsteak and tea with papa, darling?”

Maria shook her head.

“I think she had better eat the cold beef and bread, and drink the wine, and go at once to bed, if she is to start on that early train to-morrow,” Ida said.

“Maybe you are right, dear,” Harry said.  “Hurry with the roast beef and bread and wine for Miss Maria, Josephine, and Annie can see to my supper afterwards.”

All this time Harry was coaxing the baby to imbibe spoonfuls of the hot milk.  It was hard work, for Evelyn was not very hungry.  She had been given a good deal of cake and pie from a bakery all day.

However, at last she was roused sufficiently to finish her little meal, and Maria drank her glass of wine and ate a little of the bread and meat, although it seemed to her that it would choke her.  She was conscious of her father’s loving, anxious eyes upon her as she ate, and she made every effort.

Little Evelyn had recently had her own little room fitted up.  It was next to Maria’s; indeed, there was a connecting door between the two rooms.  Evelyn’s room was a marvel.  It was tiny, but complete.  Ida had the walls hung with paper with a satin gloss, on which were strewn garlands of rose-buds.  There was a white matting and a white fur rug.  The small furniture was white, with rose-bud decorations.  There was a canopy of rose silk over the tiny bed, and a silk counterpane of a rose-bud pattern.

After Evelyn had finished her hot milk, her father carried her up-stairs into this little nest, and Josephine undressed her and put her to bed.  The child’s head drooped as helplessly as a baby’s all the time, she was so overcome with sleep.  When she was in bed, Ida came in and kissed her.  She was so fast asleep that she did not know.  She and Harry stood for a moment contemplating the little thing, with her yellow hair spread over the white pillow and her round rose of a face sunken therein.  Harry put his arm around his wife’s waist.

“We ought to be very thankful, dear,” he said, and he almost sobbed.