s, brushing away her tears with a fold of the
baby's dress and trying to speak to it soothingly. But she was utterly
unnerved, and the tears and sobs kept coming back even while she spoke
those calming, loving words.

Noel could bear it no longer. He was afraid of increasing her agitation,
but he felt he must go to her aid. So he took quietly the few steps that
brought him to her and said gently:

"Christine, give the baby to me. Don't mind my seeing you. Don't mind
anything, but just try to be quiet and rest a little. I will help you."

She looked at him an instant without recognition, then a gleam of
comprehension came into her eyes, and in a confused, weak way she let
him take the baby, and falling back upon the seat she hid her face in
her hands and fell to sobbing. Noel, for the first time in his life
holding a young baby in his arms, was yet skilful with it, since nothing
but strength and tenderness were required, and he had both. He soothed
the little creature into silence, walking backward and forward a few
steps, and watching Christine intently, without speaking to her. It was
only a moment or two that she gave way, and he felt it would relieve
her. She wiped her eyes and sat up.

"I don't know what made me do it," she said. "I have never done so
before. It is so foolish; but I did so want baby to stay asleep, and I
was hoping nothing would wake him, and the whistle scared me so. Let me
have him now, Mr. Noel. Thank you, oh, thank you. Perhaps he feels
better. He has had a nice little sleep."

Noel would have kept the child, but he saw she was not to be prevented
from taking it, and when she had got it in her arms she began to look at
it and talk to it and walk it about with every appearance of having
forgotten Noel altogether. He had called her Christine under impulse,
and he now recalled the fact that she had taken it simply and without
any protest. On the whole, he was glad. To have called her by the formal
name by which he had known her might have struck some chord of pain. He
did not even know that she bore it still. Dallas might be dead or worse
than dead to her. A score of possibilities suggested themselves to his
mind. But he felt he must try, if possible, to make her understand him.

"Poor little ill baby," he said, going close to her side, where she
stood by the railing with the baby laid upon her shoulder, her head
tilted so as to rest her cheek on his. "I hope he is better. I am so
glad I saw