nd the kettle upset
into the fender.

'Give me the child,' the organist said. And Bill obeyed, as he did at
the choir practice when he was told to pass a hymn-book, and too
miserable to wonder much at this new aspect of his master, and at
seeing him take the baby as if he knew all about it, and sit down in
father's arm-chair.

'See if you can't make the fire burn up,' he went on; 'the child's
cold.'

Zoe seemed well content with her new nurse, and left off crying, and
sat blinking gravely at the fire, which Bill, much relieved at having
something definite to do, soon roused up to a sparkling, crackling
blaze with some dry sticks; while Mr Robins warmed her small, pink feet.

Bill would certainly have been surprised if he could have seen what was
passing in the organist's mind, a proposal ripening into a firm resolve
that he would take the child home that very night and tell Jane who she
was. Let the village talk as it might, he did not mind; let them say
what they pleased.

He knew enough of village reports to guess that Gray was not as badly
hurt as every one declared; but still, even a trifling accident meant,
at any rate, a week or two of very short commons at the cottage,
perhaps less milk for the baby, or economy over fuel, and the September
days were growing cold and raw, and there had been more than one frost
in the mornings, and the baby's little toes were cold to his warm hand.
Mrs Gray, too, would be occupied and taken up with her husband, and
little Zoe would be pushed about from one to another, and he had heard
that there was scarlatina about, and the relieving officer had been
telling him that very morning how careless the people were about
infection.

The cottage looked quite different in the blazing firelight, and Bill,
encouraged by the organist's presence, tidied up the place, where the
washtub stood just as Mrs Gray had left it; and he set the kettle on to
boil, so that when Mrs Gray and Tom came in it presented quite a
comfortable appearance.

Mrs Gray came in tired and tearful, but decidedly hopeful, having left
Gray comfortably in bed with his leg set, and having received
reassuring opinions from nurse and doctor: and the first alarm and
apprehension being removed, there was a certain feeling of importance
in her position as wife of the injured man, and excitement at a visit
to the country town, both ways in a cart, which does not happen often
in a life-time.

The baby, thanks to the w