“Yes.  I’ve been thinking it over for some time.  I have often thought of adopting a child, since my husband’s death.  But it seemed so hard to get a suitable one.  It is very few children I would want to take into my home.  I wouldn’t think of taking a home child—­some outcast of the slums in all probability.  And there is hardly ever any other child to be got.  One of the fishermen down at the harbour died last fall and left six youngsters.  They tried to get me to take one, but I soon gave them to understand that I had no idea of adopting trash like that.  Their grandfather stole a horse.  Besides, they were all boys and I wanted a girl—­a quiet, obedient girl that I could train up to be a lady.  Una will suit me exactly.  She would be a nice little thing if she was properly looked after—­so different from Faith.  I would never dream of adopting Faith.  But I’ll take Una and I’ll give her a good home, and up-bringing, Mr. Meredith, and if she behaves herself I’ll leave her all my money when I die.  Not one of my own relatives shall have a cent of it in any case, I’m determined on that.  It was the idea of aggravating them that set me to thinking of adopting a child as much as anything in the first place.  Una shall be well dressed and educated and trained, Mr. Meredith, and I shall give her music and painting lessons and treat her as if she was my own.”

Mr. Meredith was wide enough awake by this time.  There was a faint flush in his pale cheek and a dangerous light in his fine dark eyes.  Was this woman, whose vulgarity and consciousness of money oozed out of her at every pore, actually asking him to give her Una—­his dear little wistful Una with Cecilia’s own dark-blue eyes—­the child whom the dying mother had clasped to her heart after the other children had been led weeping from the room.  Cecilia had clung to her baby until the gates of death had shut between them.  She had looked over the little dark head to her husband.

“Take good care of her, John,” she had entreated.  “She is so small—­and sensitive.  The others can fight their way—­but the world will hurt her.  Oh, John, I don’t know what you and she are going to do.  You both need me so much.  But keep her close to you—­keep her close to you.”

These had been almost her last words except a few unforgettable ones for him alone.  And it was this child whom Mrs. Davis had coolly announced her intention of taking from him.  He sat up straight and looked at Mrs. Davis.  In spite of the worn dressing gown and the frayed slippers there was something about him that made Mrs. Davis feel a little of the old reverence for “the cloth” in which she had been brought up.  After all, there was a certain divinity hedging a minister, even a poor, unworldly, abstracted one.

“I thank you for your kind intentions, Mrs. Davis,” said Mr. Meredith with a gentle, final, quite awful courtesy, “but I cannot give you my child.”