is bed-fellows), we both
went in to have a final view of our little foundling. As we stood
there, clasping each other's hands in silence, Storm suddenly fixed
his eyes with a savage glare upon one of the bed-posts which contained
a tile of porcelain, representing Joseph leaving his garment in the
hand of Potiphar's wife; on the post opposite was seen Samson sheared
of his glory and Delilah fleeing through the opened door with his
seven locks in her hand; a third represented Jezebel being
precipitated from a third-story window, and the subject of the fourth
I have forgotten. It was a remnant of the not always delicate humor of
the seventeenth century. My friend, with a fierce disgust, strangely
out of keeping with his former mood, pulled a knife from his pocket,
and deliberately proceeded to demolish the precious tiles. When he had
succeeded in breaking out the last, he turned to me and said:

"I have been an atrocious fool. It is high time I should get to know
it."

A week later I found four new tiles with designs of Fra Angelico's
angels installed in the places of the reprobate Biblical women.

IV.

"Wer zum ersten Male liebt,
Sei es auch gluecklos ist ein Gott."--HEINE.

During the following week, Storm and I, with the aid of the police,
searched New York from one end to the other; but Emily must have
foreseen the event, and covered up her tracks carefully. Our seeking
was all in vain. In the meanwhile the baby was not neglected; my
friend's third room, which had hitherto done service as a sort of
state parlor, was consecrated as a nursery, a stout German nurse was
procured, and much time was devoted to the designing of a cradle (an
odd mixture of the Pompeiian and the Eastlake style), which was well
calculated to stimulate whatever artistic sense our baby may have been
endowed with. If it had been heir to a throne, its wants could not
have been more carefully studied. Storm was as flexible as wax in its
tiny hand. Life had suddenly acquired a very definite meaning to him;
he had discovered that he had a valuable stake in it. Strange as it
may seem, the whole gigantic world, with its manifold and complicated
institutions, began to readjust itself in his mind with sole reference
to its possible influence upon the baby's fate. Political questions
were no longer convenient pegs to hang pessimistic epigrams on, but
became matters of vital interest because they affected the moral
condition of the country