in conclusion: "If you know of any little homeless baby,
bring it to me in place of mine, which God has taken. I shall thus be
doing good, and in part forget my sorrow."

Instantly Helen and Katy glanced at each other, the same thought
flashing upon both, and finding form in Katy's vehement outburst, "If
Mrs. Hubbell would take baby, and Marian would go, too, I should be so
happy."

In a few moments Marian had heard Katy's trouble--struggling hard to
fight back the giddy faintness she felt stealing over her, as she
thought of nursing Wilford Cameron's child.

"Write to her, Marian--write to-day--now, before I go," Katy continued,
clasping Marian's hand, with an expression which, more than aught else
won Marian Hazelton's consent to a plan which seemed so strange.

"Yes, I will write," she answered; "I will tell Amelia what you desire."

"But, Marian, you, too, must go. I'll trust baby with you. Say, Marian,
will you take care of my darling?"

It was hard to refuse, with those great, wistful, pleading eyes looking
so earnestly into hers; but Marian must have time to consider. She had
thought of going to New London to open a shop, and if she did she should
board with Mrs. Hubbell, and so be with the child. She would decide when
the answer came to the letter.

This was all the encouragement she would give; but it was enough to
change the whole nature of Katy's feelings, and her face looked bright
and cheerful as she tripped down the stairway, talking to Helen of what
seemed to both like a direct interposition of Providence, and what she
was sure would please Wilford quite as well as the farmhouse up the
river.

"Surely he will yield to me in this," she said. Nor was she wrong; for
glad of an opportunity to make some concessions, and still in the main
have his own way, Wilford raised no objection to the plan as
communicated to him by Katy, when, at an earlier hour than usual, he
came home to dinner, drawn thither by a remembrance of the face which
had haunted him the entire day, and bringing as a peace offering to both
wife and sister--a new book for the one, and for the other a set of
handsome coral, which he had heard her admire only the week before.

These he presented with that graceful, winning manner he knew so well
how to assume, and with the harmony of his household once more restored,
felt himself a model husband as he listened to Katy's plan of sending
baby to New London. On the whole, it might be bette