ogether again."

"The poor child seems to be wanted by nobody!" Sue replied, and her
eyes filled.

Jude had by this time come to himself. "What a view of life he
must have, mine or not mine!" he said. "I must say that, if I were
better off, I should not stop for a moment to think whose he might
be. I would take him and bring him up. The beggarly question of
parentage--what is it, after all? What does it matter, when you come
to think of it, whether a child is yours by blood or not? All the
little ones of our time are collectively the children of us adults of
the time, and entitled to our general care. That excessive regard of
parents for their own children, and their dislike of other people's,
is, like class-feeling, patriotism, save-your-own-soul-ism, and other
virtues, a mean exclusiveness at bottom."

Sue jumped up and kissed Jude with passionate devotion. "Yes--so
it is, dearest! And we'll have him here! And if he isn't yours it
makes it all the better. I do hope he isn't--though perhaps I ought
not to feel quite that! If he isn't, I should like so much for us
to have him as an adopted child!"

"Well, you must assume about him what is most pleasing to you, my
curious little comrade!" he said. "I feel that, anyhow, I don't like
to leave the unfortunate little fellow to neglect. Just think of
his life in a Lambeth pothouse, and all its evil influences, with a
parent who doesn't want him, and has, indeed, hardly seen him, and
a stepfather who doesn't know him. 'Let the day perish wherein I
was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child
conceived!' That's what the boy--MY boy, perhaps, will find himself
saying before long!"

"Oh no!"

"As I was the petitioner, I am really entitled to his custody, I
suppose."

"Whether or no, we must have him. I see that. I'll do the best I
can to be a mother to him, and we can afford to keep him somehow.
I'll work harder. I wonder when he'll arrive?"

"In the course of a few weeks, I suppose."

"I wish--When shall we have courage to marry, Jude?"

"Whenever you have it, I think I shall. It remains with you
entirely, dear. Only say the word, and it's done."

"Before the boy comes?"

"Certainly."

"It would make a more natural home for him, perhaps," she murmured.

Jude thereupon wrote in purely formal terms to request that the boy
should be sent on to them as soon as he arrived, making no remark
whatever on the surprising natu