s mother's blandishments.

"There now, _isn't_ he pert?" repeated the triumphant nurse. "You know
your mammie, my precious--yes, you do! The cleverest little sing that
was ever seen! He will begin to talk, ma'am, before he is many months
old, I'm sure he will! I was speaking to him just now, and he tried so
hard to copy me. I said `Goo-oo!' and he said `Coo-oo!' Oh, you would
have loved to hear him! He is a prince of babies, he is! A beautiful
darling pet!"

Esmeralda beamed with maternal pride.

"He _is_ clever!" she cried. "Fancy talking at three months old! I
must write and tell Bridgie. And he looks so intelligent, too--doesn't
he, nurse? So wise and serious! He stares at the fire as if he knew
all about it. I believe his hair has grown since yesterday! I do,
indeed!"

"He has beautiful hair--so fine! It's going to curl, too," declared the
optimistic nurse, holding the child's head against the light, when the
faintest of downs could be dimly discerned across the line of the
horizon. "He will smile in a moment if you go on talking to him, ma'am.
Perhaps you would like to sit down and take him for a bit?"

Yes, Esmeralda was only too willing, for it was only by act of grace and
when Mistress Nurse felt inclined for a gossip in the servants' hall
that she was allowed to nurse her own baby. She took the dear little
soft bundle in her arms and rocked gently to and fro, studying the
little face and dreaming mother dreams of the days to come.

If God spared him, the tiny form would grow strong, the vacant face
would become bright and alert with life, the mite of a hand would be
bigger than her own--a man's hand with a man's work as its inheritance.
There was something awful in the thought, and in her own responsibility
towards his future. Esmeralda never felt so serious, so prayerful, so
little satisfied with herself, as when she sat alone with her baby in
her arms. She knew nothing about children--very little, poor girl, of
the wise training of father and mother, but the very consciousness of
her own defects added earnestness to the resolve to bring up this child
to be wise, and strong, and noble--a power for good in the world.

That was her resolve, renewed afresh from day to day, and after the
resolve followed the relentless conviction that the change must be
wrought in herself before she would have power to teach another. It
would need a noble mother to train a noble son, a mother who was
m