bubbles out of her mouth. In all characteristics she was so different
from what her own two strenuous, exacting babies had been that Kate
marveled anew at the power of heredity.

"I _wish_ you'd let me have her!" said Jacqueline one day, renewing an
old complaint. "You don't love her half so much as I do, and anyway
you've had three of your own."

Kate smiled to herself, and did not make the obvious answer. Instead she
said, "It was to me Mag gave her, dear, to be made a 'lady' of."

"Poor Mag! Do you think you can ever do it?"

"I don't know," admitted Kate, rather helplessly. A year ago she would
have said "Yes" with confidence; but the year had done much to shake her
faith in her own ability. "At least I shall make a useful woman of her,
which is more to the point."

Only once any sign had come out of the oblivion which had engulfed Mag
Henderson. It was a little cheap string of gilt beads, addressed to Mrs.
Kildare and accompanied by a scrap of paper which read:

For little Kitty, so she kin have somethin' purty to remember her
mama by.

Kate had put the poor little gift away sadly, dreading to think how the
girl must have earned even the trifling outlay it had cost. It seemed a
pitifully suitable memento of that mother--a string of cheap gilt beads,
already tarnished....

Jacqueline's handiwork on these occasions was a rather ambitious
venture, a peppermint-striped silk shirt, reminiscent of Professor
Thorpe's courting finery, which she was making as a surprise for
Philip's birthday. Kate eyed this surprise with some misgivings, and
hoped that she would not be asked for an opinion upon it. The sleeves of
the thing looked rather odd, as if they were facing the wrong direction;
also, the buttonholes might have been spaced more evenly.

In its beginning she ventured one remonstrance. "Isn't striped silk just
a little giddy for the Cloth, dear?"

"Phil needs to be giddy, Mother. I mean that my husband shall be just as
stylish as Jemmy's. Besides, it won't show under his clerical vest."

"But if it won't show, what's the use of all this grandeur?"

"Why, Mummy, what a vulgar thought! It will feel, of course!--You know
how it is when there are ribbons and lace on our underthings--we feel
sort of superior and extra lady-like."

"Do we?" laughed Kate. "I must try it and see."

"And then men admire silk tremendously," Jacqueline informed her,
seriously. "Whenever I ask Phil what to put on, he cho