“The baby there!” she uttered.

Barbara laughed.

“It is lying by my side, under the shawl, quiet little sleeping thing.”

Madame Vine advanced and took the sleeping baby.  How could she refuse?  She had never had it in her arms before; she had, in fact, scarcely seen it.  One visit of ceremony she had paid Mrs. Carlyle, as in politeness bound, a day or two after the young lady’s arrival, and had been shown a little face, nearly covered with lace, in a cradle.

“Thank you.  I can get up now.  I might have half smothered it, had I attempted before,” continued Barbara, still laughing.  “I have been here long enough, and am quite rested.  Talking about smothering children, what accounts have we in the registrar-general’s weekly returns of health!  So many children ‘overlaid in bed,’ so many children ’suffocated in bed.’  One week there were nearly twenty; and often there are as many as eight or ten.  Mr. Carlyle says he knows they are smothered on purpose.”

“Oh, Mrs. Carlyle!”

“I exclaimed, just as you do, when he said it, and laid my hand over his lips.  He laughed, and told me I did not know half the wickedness of the world.  Thank you,” again repeated Mrs. Carlyle, taking her child from Lady Isabel.  “Is she not a pretty baby?  Do you like the name—­Anne?”

“It is a simple name,” replied Lady Isabel; “and simple names are always the most attractive.”

“That is just what Archibald thinks.  But he wanted this child’s to be Barbara.  I would not have had it Barbara for the world.  I remember his once saying, a long, long while ago that he did not like elaborate names; they were mouthfuls; and he instanced mine and his sister’s, and his own.  I recalled his words to him, and he said he may not have liked the name of Barbara then, but he loved it now.  So we entered into a compromise; Miss Baby was named Anne Barbara, with an understanding that the first name is to be for use, and the last for the registers.”

“It is not christened?” said Lady Isabel.

“Only baptized.  We should have had it christened before now, but for William’s death.  Not that we give christening dinners; but I waited for the trial at Lynneborough to be over, that my dear brother Richard might stand to the child.”

“Mr. Carlyle does not like christenings made into festivals,” Lady Isabel dreamily observed, her thoughts buried in the past.

“How do you know that?” exclaimed Barbara, opening her eyes.

And poor Madame Vine, her pale face flushing, had to stammer forth some confused words that she had “heard so somewhere.”

“It is quite true,” said Barbara.  “He has never given a christening-dinner for any of his children, and gets out of attending if invited to one.  He cannot understand the analogy between a solemn religious rite and the meeting together afterward to eat and drink and make merry, according to the fashion of this world.”