e hoped he
should be able to see her before the day was over, and she mustn't feel
any anxiety about him. This made her very happy. She decided to let him
find his child with her, particularly as the weather was raw and it did
not seem advisable to put Frances, who was feverish from weeping, into
a damp drosky again. So she sent old Erich to the foster-mother, with a
note in which she asked permission to keep the little one with her
overnight. She wanted to do this, she said, in order to surprise the
father; and having dispatched the letter she enjoyed herself playing
with the child, whose affections she now felt as if she had thoroughly
won and deserved. She made a cup of chocolate, and looked on while it
eagerly drank it; for it had not touched the sweetmeats Lucie had given
it.

She acknowledged such an evident interposition of friendly powers in
all that she had just passed through, and the good gods seemed to have
taken the part of her love and hopes so earnestly, that she had no
doubt but what the remaining difficulties would be also satisfactorily
solved.

In this opinion she was shaken, though only for a moment, by the news
Frances's foster-mother brought. That good woman was still full of the
fright that had been caused by the supposed abduction of the child, and
had no sooner received Erich's message than she set out to convince
herself with her own eyes that at all events the worst had not
happened, and that little Frances was in safety. The excitement of the
last few hours, the self-reproach she felt, and the thought of the
consequences that might follow, had so worked upon her that, at the
sight of the child smiling a welcome to her, she burst into tears and
could with difficulty be quieted. As for the permission, she said she
no longer had any right whatsoever to give such a thing, now that it
appeared that the child had not been safe from such an invasion under
her own roof; and if the father should withdraw all his confidence from
her she felt she would have no right to complain.

"Let me have her just for this night," Julie begged. "I have a
presentiment that Jansen must return to-night, and then he will be so
rejoiced to find us together. After to-morrow, you shall once more
enjoy your mother's privileges without stint, until I take your place
with still better rights."

But her presentiment deceived her.

The child was put to bed early, and, with its head resting on Julie's
pillow, had long sin