ouped in the open
window.

Mrs. Carteret, chancing to lower her eyes for an instant, caught the
other woman's look directed toward her and her child. With a glance of
cold aversion she turned away from the window.

Old Mammy Jane had observed this movement, and had divined the reason
for it. She stood beside Clara, watching the retreating buggy.

"Uhhuh!" she said to herself, "it's huh sister Janet! She ma'ied a
doctuh, an' all dat, an' she lives in a big house, an' she's be'n roun'
de worl' an de Lawd knows where e'se: but Mis' 'Livy don' like de sight
er her, an' never will, ez long ez de sun rises an' sets. Dey ce't'nly
does favor one anudder,--anybody mought 'low dey wuz twins, ef dey didn'
know better. Well, well! Fo'ty yeahs ago who'd 'a' ever expected ter
see a nigger gal ridin' in her own buggy? My, my! but I don' know,--I
don' know! It don' look right, an' it ain' gwine ter las'!--you can't
make me b'lieve!"

Meantime Janet, stung by Mrs. Carteret's look,--the nearest approach she
had ever made to a recognition of her sister's existence,--had turned
away with hardening face. She had struck her pony sharply with the whip,
much to the gentle creature's surprise, when the little boy, who was
still looking back, caught his mother's sleeve and exclaimed
excitedly:--

"Look, look, mamma! The baby,--the baby!"

Janet turned instantly, and with a mother's instinct gave an involuntary
cry of alarm.

At the moment when Mrs. Carteret had turned away from the window, and
while Mammy Jane was watching Janet, Clara had taken a step forward, and
was leaning against the window-sill. The baby, convulsed with delight,
had given a spasmodic spring and slipped from Clara's arms.
Instinctively the young woman gripped the long skirt as it slipped
through her hands, and held it tenaciously, though too frightened for an
instant to do more. Mammy Jane, ashen with sudden dread, uttered an
inarticulate scream, but retained self-possession enough to reach down
and draw up the child, which hung dangerously suspended, head downward,
over the brick pavement below.

"Oh, Clara, Clara, how could you!" exclaimed Mrs. Carteret
reproachfully; "you might have killed my child!"

She had snatched the child from Jane's arms, and was holding him closely
to her own breast. Struck by a sudden thought, she drew near the window
and looked out. Twice within a few weeks her child had been in serious
danger, and upon each occasion a member of the