Harry looked long on the plain little sleeping face, so like his own in spite of its exquisite child-coloring, and bending, touched the tossed, straight, flaxen hair.

“We couldn’t take her, I suppose?” he asked.

“No,” replied the yearning mother quietly.  “We have prayed over it.  We must know that all will be right.”

“His bark is worse than his bite,” said Harry doubtfully.  “It always was; and Mrs. Forbes is there.”

“You say she is a kind sort of woman?”

“Why, I suppose so,” uncertainly.  “I never had much to do with her.”

“And your sister?  Isn’t it very strange that she didn’t come in to meet us?  I was so certain I should put Jewel into her hands I feel a little bewildered.”

“You’re a trump!” ejaculated Harry hotly, “and you’ve married into a family where they’re scarce.  Madge might have met us at the train, at least.”

“Perhaps she is very sad over her loss,” suggested Julia.

“In the best of health.  Father said so.  Oh well, she never was anything but a big butterfly and Eloise a little one.  I remember the last time I saw the child, a pretty fairy with her long pink silk stockings.  She must have been just about the age of Jewel.”

The mother stooped over the little bed and the dingy room looked pleasanter for her smile.  “Jewel hasn’t any pink silk stockings,” she murmured, and kissed the warm rose of the round cheek.

The little girl stirred and opened her eyes, at first vaguely, then with a start.

“Is it time for the boat?” she asked, trying to rise.

Her father smoothed her hair.  “No, time to go to sleep again.  We’re just going to bed.  Good-night, Jewel.”  He stooped to kiss her, and her arms met around his neck.

“It was an April fool, wasn’t it?” she murmured sleepily, and was unconscious again.

The mother hid her face for a moment on her husband’s shoulder.  “Help me to feel that we’re doing right,” she whispered, with a catch in her breath.

“As if I could help you, Julia!” he returned humbly.

“Oh, yes, you can, dear.”  She withdrew from his embrace, and going to the dresser, took down her hair.  The smiling face of a doll looked up at her from the neighboring chair, where it was sitting bolt upright.  Her costume was fresh from the modiste, and her feet, though hopelessly pigeon-toed, were encased in bronze boots of a freshness which caught the dim gaslight with a golden sheen.

Mrs. Evringham smiled through her moist eyes.

“Well, Jewel was sleepy.  She forgot to undress Anna Belle,” she said.

Letting her hair fall about her like a veil, she caught up the doll and pressed it to her heart impulsively.  “You are going to stay with her, Anna Belle!  I envy you, I envy you!” she whispered.  An irrepressible tear fell on the sumptuous trimming of the little hat.  “Be good to her; comfort her, comfort her, little dolly.”  Hastily wiping her eyes, she turned to her husband, still holding the doll.  “We shall have to be very careful, Harry, in the morning.  If we are harboring one wrong or fearful thought, we must not let Jewel know it.”