good baby--'And easy enough too for anyone to be good,' would be the
comment of any listening Downside mother, 'when they always gets their
own way!' which, however, is not so obvious a truth as regards babies
under a year as it is of older people. Certainly to be put to bed
awake and smiling at seven o'clock, and thereupon to go to sleep, and
sleep soundly, till seven o'clock next morning, shows an amount of
virtue in a baby which is unhappily rare, though captious readers may
attribute it rather to good health and digestion, which may also be
credited, perhaps, with much virtue in older people.

'And I do say,' Mrs Gray was never tired of repeating to anyone who had
patience to listen, 'as nothing wouldn't upset that blessed little
angel, as it makes me quite uneasy thinking as how she's too good to
live, as is only natural to mortal babies to have the tantrums now and
then, if it 's only from stomach-ache.'

The only person who seemed to sympathise in the Grays' admiration for
the baby was the organist. It was really wonderful, Mrs Gray said, the
fancy he had taken to the child--'Ay, and the child to him too, perking
up and looking quite peart like, as soon as ever his step come along
the path.' The wonder was mostly in the baby taking to him, in Mrs
Gray's opinion, as there was nothing to be surprised at in anyone
taking to the baby; but 'he, with no chick nor child of his own, and
with that quiet kind of way with him as ain't general what children
like; though don't never go for to tell me as Mr Robins is proud and
stuck up, as I knows better.'

There was a sort of fascination about the child to the organist, and
when he found that no one seemed to have the slightest suspicion as to
who the baby really was, or why he should be interested in it, he gave
way more and more to the inclination to go to the Grays' cottage, and
watch the little thing, and trace the likeness that seemed every day to
grow more and more strong to his dead wife and to her baby girl.

Perhaps anyone sharper and less simple than Mrs Gray might have grown
suspicious of some other reason than pure, disinterested admiration for
little Zoe, as the cause which brought the organist so often to her
house; and perhaps, if the cottage had stood in the village street, it
might have occasioned remarks among the neighbours; but he had always,
of late years, been so reserved and solitary a man that no notice was
taken of his comings and goings, and if