down to greet her party of sponsors. Never
had she looked prettier than when her husband led her into the room,
her taper figure so graceful in her somewhat languid movements, and her
countenance so sweetly blending the expression of child and mother. Each
white cheek was tinged with exquisite rose colour, and the dark liquid
eyes and softly smiling mouth had an affectionate pensiveness far
lovelier than her last year's bloom, and yet there was something painful
in that beauty--it was too like the fragility of the flower fading under
one hour's sunshine; and there was a sadness in seeing the matronly
stamp on a face so young that it should have shown only girlhood's
freedom from care. Arthur indeed was boasting of the return of the
colour, which spread and deepened as he drew attention to it; but John
and Lady Elizabeth agreed, as they walked to church, that it was the
very token of weakness, and that with every kind intention Arthur did
not know how to take care of her--how should he?

The cheeks grew more brilliant and burning at church, for on being
carried to the font, the baby made his doleful notes heard, and when
taken from his nurse, they rose into a positive roar. Violet looked from
him to his father's face, and there saw so much discomposure that her
wretchedness was complete, enhanced as it was by a sense of wickedness
in not being able to be happy and grateful. Just as when a few days
previously she had gone to return thanks, she had been in a nervous
state of fluttering and trembling that allowed her to dwell on nothing
but the dread of fainting away. The poor girl's nerves had been so
completely overthrown, that even her powers of mind seemed to be
suffering, and her agitated manner quite alarmed Lady Elizabeth. She was
in good hands, however; Lady Elizabeth went home with her, kept every
one else away, and nursing her in her own kind way, brought her back to
common sense, for in the exaggeration of her weak spirits, she had been
feeling as if it was she who had been screaming through the service, and
seriously vexing Arthur.

He presently looked in himself to say the few fond merry words that were
only needed to console her, and she was then left alone to rest, not
tranquil enough for sleep, but reading hymns, and trying to draw her
thoughts up to what she thought they ought to be on the day of her
child's baptismal vows.

It was well for her that the christening dinner (a terror to her
imagination) ha