ked; their under-clothes like gossamer,
outside plainer than mine. Bah! I know the real stuff, when I see it, I
hope. No sham there!"

When the baby was tired of its romp, Madame Soule hushed it to sleep.
She was the quietest nurse ever lived,--the quietest woman,--one whom
you scarce noted when with her, and forgot as soon as you left the room.
Nature had made her up with its most faint, few lines, and palest
coloring. Soule, however, had found out the delicate beauty, and all
else that lay beneath. There was a passionate fierceness sometimes in
his look at her, and a something else stranger,--such an expression as a
dog gives his master. She never talked but to him.

"I thought you would have breakfasted with him, perhaps," she said, now.

"No. I'm too much of an Arab, Judith. I can't eat a man's salt and empty
his pocket at the same time."

"I'm glad you did not," smiling as the baby caught at his father's
seals, then glancing at the watch when Soule held it out for him.
"Nearly eleven. It is time your brother was here. See, John, how pink
its feet are, and dimpled,"--putting one to her mouth with a burst of
childish laughter.

Soule played with a solitary white calla that stood near in a crystal
vase, gulped down a glass of wine hastily, held the delicate glass up to
see how like a golden bubble it was, then threw it down.

"Are you sure we are right in this, child?"

She stopped playing with the baby, but did not look up.

"About your brother?"

"I thought"--with the doubtful look of one who is about to essay his
strength against flint. "It has been a hard life,--Stephen's,--and
through us. What if we let him go?" anxiously. "What would be better? He
has children,"--taking the baby's hand in his.

"Yes, children,--clods, like his wife,"--the pink lip curling. "You
should know your brother, John Yarrow. You do know the stuff that is in
him. Will his brain ever muddle down to find comfort in that
inn-keeper's daughter? Is it likely? Besides, they are dead to him now.
You have succeeded in keeping them apart."

If she saw the dark flush in his face at this, she did not notice it,
but went on hastily.

"Stephen never had a chance, and you know it, John. He was too weak to
break the trammels at home, as you did,--let himself be forced to preach
what his soul knew was a lie. When you tried to open the door for him to
a broader life"--

"I shut him in a penitentiary-cell," with a bitter laugh. "They taught