direction, and cut short his farewell remarks, which frequently
lasted for ten minutes or more. And all the way to the gate Robins was
talking much quicker and louder than was his usual custom, and he ended
by almost pushing Millet out at the gate, all the time expressing great
pleasure at having seen him, and pressing him to come in again any
evening he could spare the time, and have a pipe and a bit of supper
with him--such unheard-of hospitality that Millet went home quite
persuaded that the old man was, as he expressed it to his wife, 'going
off his chump;' so that it was quite a relief to meet him two days
later at the choir practice as formal and distant in his manners as
ever.

Meanwhile Mr Robins had hastened back to his bedroom where the baby lay
asleep on his bed; for it had been really Jane Sands' cat whose voice
Millet heard, and not, as Mr Robins believed, the waking child's.

It was quite dark up there, and he could only feel the warm, little
heap on his bed, but he struck a match to look at it. The shawl had
fallen away, showing its little dark head and round sleeping face, with
one little fist doubled up against its cheek and half-open mouth, and
the other arm thrown back, the tiny hand lying with the little moist,
creased palm turned up.

'She's like mother, I 'm sure she is.' He remembered the words and
scanned the small sleeping face. Well, perhaps there was a likeness,
the eyelashes and the gypsy tint of the complexion; but just then the
match went out and the organist remembered there was no time to be
wasted in trying to see likenesses in Martin Blake's brat. But just as
he was lifting the baby cautiously from his bed, a sudden thought
struck him. Zoe was to be her name; well, it should be so, though he
had no concern in her name or anything else; so he groped about for
pencil and paper, and wrote the name in big printing letters to
disguise his hand and make it as distinct as possible, though even so,
as we have seen already, the name caused considerable perplexity to the
sponsors. And then he pinned the paper on to the shawl, and taking the
child in his arms set out across the field path to the Grays' cottage.

There was a cold air, though it was a May night, but the child lay warm
against him, and he remembered how its mother had said she could feel
the likeness even in the dark, and he could not resist laying his cold
finger on the warm little cheek under the shawl; and then, angry w