Family Pride

They granted her request, but Wilford stood beside the open door, listening while the mother bade farewell to her baby.

"Darling," she murmured, "what will poor Katy do when you are gone, or what will comfort her as you have done? Precious baby, my heart is breaking to give you up; but will the Father in Heaven who knows how much you are to me, keep you from harm and bring you back again? Some time I'd give the world to keep you, but I cannot do it, for Wilford says that you must go, and Wilford is your father."

At that moment Wilford Cameron would have given half his fortune to have kept his child for Katy's sake, but it was now too late; the carriage was at the door, and Marian, whom no one had seen but Helen, was waiting in the hall, her thick green veil dropped before her face, and a muffler about her mouth as if suffering from the toothache. Helen had asked if it were so, but Marian's answer was prevented by the little procession filing down the stairs--Mrs. Cameron and Bell, Wilford and Katy, who carried the baby herself, her face bent over it and her tears still dropping like rain. But it was Wilford who put his child into Marian's extended arms, forgetting in his excitement to notice aught in the new nurse except the long, green veil which was not raised at all, even when Katy said, pleadingly, "You will care for her, Marian, as if she were your own."

"Yes, I will, I will," was the response, spoken huskily and having in it no tone like Genevra's. "I will as if it were my own," were the last words Marian said as she went down the steps, followed by Wilford, to whom the thought had just occurred that he ought to see her off.

Marian had not expected this, and the tension of her nerves was hardly equal to the task of sitting there with Wilford Cameron opposite, his baby in her lap, his voice in her ear, and his eyes turned upon her as if curious to know what manner of woman she was. But the thick veil did its duty well, while the muffler answered the purpose intended; it changed the voice which was only natural once, and that when it addressed the baby, which began to grow restless as they drew near the depot. Then Wilford was reminded of Genevra, and the thought carried him across the sea, so that he forgot all else until the station was reached and he was busy, procuring checks and ticket. He saw her into the car, procuring for her a double seat, and speaking a word for her to the conductor, whom he knew. And this he did partly for Katy's sake, and partly because in spite of the plain attire he recognized the lady and felt that Marian Hazelton was no ordinary person. He offered her his hand, wondering why hers trembled so in his grasp, wondering why it was so cold, and wondering, too, why, if she had never been a wife, she wore that plain gold circlet which glittered upon her third finger.