he crib.

"I never want a child!" cried Nannie passionately. "If God can be so
cruel as to take her, I never want one!"

It was Constance who was forced to comfort.

"Don't say that, dear," she urged gently. "I don't understand why we
couldn't keep her, but I _know_ that God is good. And we'd rather have
her this way than never to have held our own little baby----"

But here she broke down and wept convulsively over the tiny crib.

And Steve and Nannie wept as they went homeward together hand in hand.

There is another baby there now--a jolly, roystering little fellow,
just one year old to-day, on his mother's birthday, and a very
precious little man he is; but the dear little girl who just alighted
in their arms long enough to lay hold upon their heartstrings and then
flew away with the other angels is not forgotten.

Randolph stepped over to Steve's desk this morning to ask if he and
Nannie would be sure to come in the evening to celebrate the double
birthday.

"If it's at all clear we will, old man, and gladly," said Steve, "but
it looks to me as if a big storm were brewing."

"Well, I hope you can come. We think a deal of these anniversaries.
Each one of 'em marks off a happy year, I tell you, old man."

"No doubt," said Steve gently.

"And the years have been successful, too," continued Randolph. "On the
whole--to speak between friends--I've managed pretty well, I think."

"Pretty well with one," said Steve, and there was a slight gleam in
his eye as he recalled Randolph's bachelor boast that he could manage
forty women. "Now for the thirty-nine."

"Steve," said Randolph, "you're a good fellow, but you'll have to let
up on that forty. I had sense enough, after all, to marry only one of
them, and occasionally I have my doubts--looks a little as if even
that one managed me. Just you drop the thirty-nine. You're using the
poker too freely."

And then they fell to talking about how warm it was on this same day
three years ago.

Steve was right, for that afternoon it began to snow and it forgot to
stop. He had hard work to get home and still harder to get out and
attend to the little stock. The chickens, he found, had had the sense
to go to roost before time; both Brownie and the cat were safe indoor;
they could look out for themselves, but the gentle, fawn-like Jersey
(quite a different animal from the wild-eyed beast of three years
agone) had expectations, and she must needs receive especial care.