ched
the ground. On her feet were red shoes, which twinkled in and out of
the black, as with great dexterity and lightness, she clambered up the
steps of the porch and stood before me, one of the miracles of God
before which we human folk stand abashed. For here was Marian again.
Marian to the turn of an eyelash; to the finger tips; in the bronze
chestnut curls which stood like a halo round the face; in the supple
little woman-body; in all the dear, quaint, beautiful baby who stood
before me devouring me with gray eyes, and looking at me with a
radiant, shy smile as she held a kitten tail up against her breast.

After a few seconds' regard of me, during which I could see by her face
that she was piecing some bits of knowledge together, she clapped her
hands.

"Jock!" she cried, with a rapturous smile.

I can never tell the joy and horror of the moment, for my name was the
first word my beloved had ever spoken to me, and at the sound of it
from this, her child, my heart leaped into my throat; there came a
whirring in the top of my head and a singing in my ears, and as I sank
upon the old stone settle something like a moan escaped me.

In the next minute I knew Nancy Stair for all time. The sight of
suffering seemed to put her past herself, and, dashing toward me, she
climbed up on the seat. I could feel the warmth of her body and the
clinging of her dimpled arm as she drew my head against her naked,
palpitating little breast as though to defend me from suffering against
the whole world.

"Oh, you poor fing!" she cried. "You poor fing! Does you hurt?"

When I had in some degree recovered my self-control, the child sat down
beside me, so close that she pushed her small body against mine, with
one rose-leaf of a hand laid upon my knee in a protective fashion,
every little while giving me a pat, as a mother soothes a child.

Sitting thus, my arm around her, my soul stirred to its depths, my eyes
brooded over all her baby charms.

She was of a slender, round figure, with dimpled neck and arms. Her
head was broad, her forehead low, with noticeably black brows, and she
had a way, when perplexed, I very soon discovered, of drawing these
together, the right one falling a bit lower than the left. It was the
eyes which struck one first, however; brooding, passionate, observant,
quick to look within or without, and fearless in their glance. Mrs.
Opie states that they were black, and Reynolds painted them bright
blue; but t