Albinia’s testimony cleared Mrs. Brock as to the three-and-fourpence, but she ‘snuffed the battle from afar,’ and rushed into a scheme of taking the clothing-club into her own hands, collecting the pence, having the goods from London, and selling them herself—­she would propose it on the very first opportunity to the Dusautoys.  Winifred asked if she had not a good deal on her hands already.

‘My dear, I have the work in me of a young giant.’

‘And will Mr. Kendal like it?’

’He would never find it out unless I told him, and very possibly not then.  Six months hence, perhaps, he may tell me he is glad that Lucy is inclined to useful pursuits, and that is approval, Winifred, much more than if I went and worried him about every little petty woman’s matter.’

‘Every one to her taste,’ thought Winifred, who had begun to regard Mr. and Mrs. Kendal in the same relation as the king and queen at chess.

The day before the christening, Mr. Ferrars brought back Gilbert and his own little Willie.

Through all the interchange of greetings, Gilbert would hardly let go Albinia’s hand, and the moment her attention was free, he earnestly whispered, ‘May I see my brother?’

She took him upstairs at once.  ‘Let me look a little while,’ he said, hanging over the child with a sort of hungry fondness and curiosity.  ‘My brother! my brother!’ he repeated.  ’It has rung in my ears every morning that I can say my brother once more, till I have feared it was a dream.’

It was the sympathy Albinia cared for, come back again!  ’I hope he will be a good brother to you,’ she said.

‘He must be good! he can’t help it!  He has you!’ said Gilbert.  ‘See, he is opening his eyes—­oh! how blue!  May I touch him?’

‘To be sure you may.  He is not sugar,’ said Albinia, laughing.  ’There—­make an arm; you may have him if you like.  Your left arm, you awkward man.  Yes, that is right.  You will do quite as well as I, who never touched a baby till Willie was born.  There, sir, how do you like your brother Gilbert?’

Gilbert held him reverently, and gave him back with a sigh when he seemed to have satiated his gaze and touch, and convinced himself that his new possession was substantial.  ‘I say,’ he added wistfully, ’did you think that name would bring ill-luck?

She knew the name he meant, and answered, ’No, but your father could not have borne it.  Besides, Gibbie, we would not think him instead of Edmund.  No, he shall learn, to look up to his other brother as you do, and look to meeting and knowing him some day.’