differently and they
look so sweet. You can take your choice of them; Aunt Edith cried.
But you must let them be Catholics."

"Richard wouldn't let me take one from an institution," the Duchess
said, "and somehow I wouldn't care to, myself. But there is a woman
I know of who is interested in children that--that aren't likely to
grow up happily, and she will get one for anybody, only one can't
ask any questions about them. You may have all the rights in them,
but you will never know where they came from. And Richard won't have
that. I suppose he's right."

"But there are plenty of people who would let you have one, if you
would give her a good home and be kind to her," Caroline began,
lapsing for the moment into her confusing, adult manner.

"Yes, but Richard says that no people nice enough to have a child we
could want would ever give us the child, don't you see," the Duchess
interrupted eagerly. "He says the father must be a gentleman--and
educated--and the mother a good woman. He says there must be good
blood behind it. And they must never see it, never ask about it,
never want it. He says he doesn't see how I could bear to have a
child that any other mother had ever loved."

Caroline sighed.

"Cousin Richard does make up his mind, so!" she muttered.

"He is unreasonable," said the Duchess suddenly, "unreasonable! He
must know all about the child, but the parents must not know about
us! Not know our name, even! Just give up the child and
withdraw--why, the poorest, commonest people would not do that, and
does he expect that people of the kind he requires would be so
heartless? We shall never be able to get one--never. And yet he
wants one so--almost as much as I!"

The Duchess had forgotten Caroline. Staring at the opal globes she
sat, and again the tears rose, brimmed and overflowed.

Caroline slipped off the little stool and walked softly out of the
beautiful room. The books glowed jewel-like, the four milky moons
swayed ever so little on their brass chains, the white busts looked
coldly at the Duchess as she sat crying in her big carved chair, and
there was nobody that could help at all.

Through the dark, shiny halls she walked--cautiously, for she had
had embarrassing lessons in its waxy polish--and paused from force
of habit to pat the great white polar bear that made the little
reception room such a delightful place. More than the busts in
the library even, he set loose the fancy, and whiled one aw