're looking at the child."

Susie turned away, her bosom heaving; there were no tears in her eyes,
she had already wept them dry.

"And you mustn't look at me as if I were a stranger, as if I had come to
see you out of impertinent curiosity only; I want to come to see you
very often. I'm in love with Gerald--it is to be Gerald, isn't
it?--already. And it will be such a pleasure to me to run in and see him
as often as I can; indeed, I must look after him; I shall be his second
mother, you see; and between us, we'll train him up in the way he should
go, and make a good man of him."

She was smiling now; but there were tears in her eyes, though Susie's
were still dry.

"I can't resist you," said Susie, at last. "I know it's wrong that you
should be mixed up with one like me. Your friends----"

"Haven't any friends," said Celia, lightly. "I mean, friends that would
interfere with me; and if I had, I should not let them do so. I'm alone
in the world, like yourself, Susie; and I'm my own mistress. Come, say
'Yes.'"

"I must. It's not in me to resist you, miss," said Susie, with a little
gesture of yielding. "But, mind me! the people hereabouts, the grand
folk up at the Hall, will take offence----"

"Let them!" said Celia. "But I don't think they will. They are all very
kind, even the Marquess."

Susie looked up swiftly.

"Is--is he here, at the Hall?" she asked.

"Yes," said Celia. "He came last night. I saw him; he is very kind,
though a very sad, melancholy man. You shall have the baby now. It's
cruel of me to have kept him so long. But I must hurry back; for I have
so much work to do. I shall come again as soon as I can; and I'll speak
to Lady Gridborough about the christening, and arrange everything."

Susie went out to the gate with her, and was saying the last good-bye,
when the stillness was broken by the humming of a motor-car. In a cloud
of dust, an automobile came up the road; it was upon them almost in an
instant.

"That's the big car from the Hall," said Celia. "Why, it must have come
from the station, and that must be----"

As she spoke the car came abreast of them. In it were seated a fair,
good-looking man, with prominent eyes and loose lips, and beside him an
extremely pretty woman, clad daintily in a fashionable and expensive
travelling costume.

"----Yes, that must be Lord and Lady Heyton," finished Celia; and her
attention was so engrossed by the occupants of the car that she did not
see