as at some distance, to be sure, and Mr Robins had not
had much to do with babies of late years, and was a little distrustful
of his ability to carry one so far without rousing it and so
proclaiming its presence, but there was a path across the fields but
little frequented, by which he could convey the child without much risk
of being met and observed.

And now the great thing to aim at was to carry out his plan as quickly
as possible, before any one was aware of the child being at his house;
and he gathered up the little warm bundle as gingerly as he knew how,
and was on his way to the gate, when the sound of approaching steps
along the road made him draw back and, unlocking the door, carry the
child in. The steps stopped at the gate and turned in, and one of the
choirmen came to the door.

There were little movements and soft grumblings inside the shawl in the
organist's arms, and he turned quite cold with apprehension.

'Anyone at home?' sounded Millet's jovial voice at the open door.
''Evening, Mr Robins--are you there? All in the dark, eh? I wanted a
couple of words with you about that song.'

'I 'll come directly,' sounded the organist's voice, with a curious
jogging effect in it, such as Millet was used to sometimes in his
conversations with his wife at the children's bed-time. And then
Millet heard him go up-stairs, and it was some minutes before he came
down again, and then in such a queer absent condition that if it had
been any other man in the parish than Mr Robins, whose sobriety was
unimpeachable, Millet would have said that he had had a drop too much.

He did not ask him in or strike a light, but stood at the door
answering quite at haphazard, and showing such indifference on the
vital question of a certain song suiting Millet's voice, that that
usually good-natured man was almost offended.

'Well, I 'll wish you good evening,' he said at last (it seemed to
Robins that he had been hours at the door); 'perhaps you 'll just think
it over and let me know. Hullo!--is that a cat you have up there? I
thought I heard something squeal out just then.'

Mr Robins was not generally given to shaking hands--indeed, some of the
choir thought he was too much stuck up to do so; but just then he
seized Millet's hand and shook it quite boisterously, at the same time
advancing with the apparent intention of accompanying him in a friendly
manner to the gate, a movement which compelled Millet to back in the
same