hing was so quiet, so suggestive
of death.

"Where is Katy?" he asked.

"She is sleeping for the first time since the baby died. She is in here
with the child. She will stay nowhere else," Helen said, opening softly
the door of the bedroom and motioning Wilford in.

With hushed breath and a beating heart, Wilford stepped across the
threshold and Helen closed the door, leaving him alone with the living
and the dead. Pure and beautiful as some fair blossom, the dead child
lay upon the bed, the curls of golden hair clustering about its head,
and on its lips the smile which had settled there when it tried to say
"mamma"--its dimpled hands folded upon its breast, where lay the cross
of flowers which Marian Hazelton had made--flowers upon its pillow,
flowers around its head, flowers upon its shroud, flowers everywhere,
and itself the fairest flower of all, Wilford thought as he stood gazing
at it and then let his eye move on to where poor, tired, worn-out Katy
had crept up so close beside it that her breath touched the marble cheek
and her own disordered hair rested upon the pillow of her child. Even in
her sleep her tears kept dropping from the long eyelashes, and the pale
lips quivered in a grieved, touching way. Hard indeed would Wilford have
been had he cherished one bitter thought against the wife so wounded. He
could not when he saw her, but no one ever knew just what passed through
his mind during the half hour he sat there beside her, scarcely
stirring and not daring to kiss his child lest he should awaken her. He
could hear the ticking of his watch and the beating of his heart as he
waited for the first sound which should herald Katy's waking.

Suddenly there was a low, gasping moan, and Katy's eyes unclosed and
rested on her husband. He was bending over her in an instant, and her
arms were around his neck, while she said to him so sadly:

"Our baby is dead--you've nobody left but me; and oh! Wilford, you will
not blame me bringing baby here? I did not think she would die. I'd give
my life for hers if that would bring her back. Say, Wilford, would you
rather it was me lying as baby lies, and she here in your arms?"

"No, Katy," Wilford answered, and by his voice Katy knew that she was
wholly forgiven, crying on his neck in a plaintive, piteous way, while
Wilford soothed and pitied and caressed, feeling subdued and humbled,
and we must confess it, feeling too how very good and generous he was to
be thus forbeari