ly towards him.

Meanwhile Frans had produced two bonbons, wrapped in mourning-paper,
and with hour-glasses and skeletons gloomily pictured upon them. He
was engaged in counting the ribs of the skeletons, to make sure that
the number was the same on both, when Alma caught sight of him. The
gentle, loving look in her face changed suddenly to one of sour
reproof. She motioned disapprovingly to Frans, and vainly tried to get
at him behind the rigid figure of her father. Before her very eyes,
and in smiling defiance, the boy opened the black paper and devoured
the sweets within, with evident relish, bodily and spiritual.

At this moment there was a stir in the vestibule and in the sacristy
adjoining, and then a murmur of low, hushed voices, and for a moment
the tramping of many little feet.

Alma looked around her, and now noticed on the platform for the altar a
small white-covered table, and upon it a little homely bowl and a
folded napkin. Beside the table a gray-haired old clergyman had taken
his place. In one hand he held officially a corner of his open white
handkerchief, while in the other was a thin black book.

There was a slight shuffling first, and then a tall man, with
apparently a very stout woman at his side, came up the aisle and stood
in front of the clergyman.

"It cannot be a wedding," thought Alma, accustomed to the splendid
fonts of the churches of great cities; she could not suppose that
simple household bowl was for a baptism. The broken, disabled stone
font she did not notice, as it leaned helplessly against the side wall
of the building.

The clergyman opened his book and looked about him, doubtfully turned
over the leaves, and then began the service "for the baptism of a
foundling," as the most appropriate for the present peculiar
circumstances that the time-honoured ritual afforded.

At that moment Karin threw open her shawl, and showed the little brown
baby asleep in her arms. Alma's attention was fixed, and Frans was all
observation, if not attention.

[Illustration: The baptismal service.]

"Beloved Christians," began the pastor; he paused, glanced at the
scattered worshippers, and then went on, "our Lord Jesus Christ has
said, 'Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter
into the kingdom of God.' We do not know whether this child has been
baptized or no, since, against the command of the heavenly Father, and
even the very laws and feelings of nature, he h