ky from the wharf above. Ursula could tell
he disapproved of her.

"I must give it to your baby--may I?" she said to
the bargee.

He flushed, and looked away into the evening.

"Nay," he said, "it's not for me to say."

"What would your father and mother say?" cried the woman
curiously, from the door.

"It is my own," said Ursula, and she dangled the little
glittering string before the baby. The infant spread its little
fingers. But it could not grasp. Ursula closed the tiny hand
over the jewel. The baby waved the bright ends of the string.
Ursula had given her necklace away. She felt sad. But she did
not want it back.

The jewel swung from the baby's hand and fell in a little
heap on the coal-dusty bottom of the barge. The man groped for
it, with a kind of careful reverence. Ursula noticed the
coarsened, blunted fingers groping at the little jewelled heap.
The skin was red on the back of the hand, the fair hairs
glistened stiffly. It was a thin, sinewy, capable hand
nevertheless, and Ursula liked it. He took up the necklace
carefully, and blew the coal-dust from it, as it lay in the
hollow of his hand. He seemed still and attentive. He held out
his hand with the necklace shining small in its hard, black
hollow.

"Take it back," he said.

Ursula hardened with a kind of radiance.

"No," she said. "It belongs to little Ursula."

And she went to the infant and fastened the necklace round
its warm, soft, weak little neck.

There was a moment of confusion, then the father bent over
his child:

"What do you say?" he said. "Do you say thank you? Do you say
thank you, Ursula?"

"Her name's Ursula now," said the mother, smiling a
little bit ingratiatingly from the door. And she came out to
examine the jewel on the child's neck.

"It is Ursula, isn't it?" said Ursula Brangwen.

The father looked up at her, with an intimate, half-gallant,
half-impudent, but wistful look. His captive soul loved her: but
his soul was captive, he knew, always.

She wanted to go. He set a little ladder for her to climb up
to the wharf. She kissed the child, which was in its mother's
arms, then she turned away. The mother was effusive. The man
stood silent by the ladder.

Ursula joined Skrebensky. The two young figures crossed the
lock, above the shining yellow water. The barge-man watched them
go.

"I loved them," she was saying. "He was so
gentle--oh, so gentle! And the baby was such a dear!"

"Was he gentle?" said Skr