That is a fine thing."

He thought it over a few moments, and felt that this evil should be
corrected at once.

"It should be baptized," he said. "Why don't she take it and have
it baptized?"

Mrs. Gerhardt reminded him that some one would have to stand
godfather to the child, and there was no way to have the ceremony
performed without confessing the fact that it was without a legitimate
father.

Gerhardt listened to this, and it quieted him for a few moments,
but his religion was something which he could not see put in the
background by any such difficulty. How would the Lord look upon
quibbling like this? It was not Christian, and it was his duty to
attend to the matter. It must be taken, forthwith, to the church,
Jennie, himself, and his wife accompanying it as sponsors; or, if he
did not choose to condescend thus far to his daughter, he must see
that it was baptized when she was not present. He brooded over this
difficulty, and finally decided that the ceremony should take place on
one of these week-days between Christmas and New Year's, when Jennie
would be at her work. This proposal he broached to his wife, and,
receiving her approval, he made his next announcement. "It has no
name," he said.

Jennie and her mother had talked over this very matter, and Jennie
had expressed a preference for Vesta. Now her mother made bold to
suggest it as her own choice.

"How would Vesta do?"

Gerhardt heard this with indifference. Secretly he had settled the
question in his own mind. He had a name in store, left over from the
halcyon period of his youth, and never opportunely available in the
case of his own children--Wilhelmina. Of course he had no idea of
unbending in the least toward his small granddaughter. He merely liked
the name, and the child ought to be grateful to get it. With a
far-off, gingery air he brought forward this first offering upon the
altar of natural affection, for offering it was, after all.

"That is nice," he said, forgetting his indifference. "But how
would Wilhelmina do?"

Mrs. Gerhardt did not dare cross him when he was thus unconsciously
weakening. Her woman's tact came to the rescue.

"We might give her both names," she compromised.

"It makes no difference to me," he replied, drawing back into the
shell of opposition from which he had been inadvertently drawn. "Just
so she is baptized."

Jennie heard of this with pleasure, for she was anxious that the
child should have every adva