t all! Now--come."

He raised her to her feet, and together they entered the room where, in
a railed cot, the unconscious herald of a larger joy, a more sacred
intimacy, lay sleeping:--a creature of flower-soft tints and curves,
who, in the sublime wisdom of babyhood, was concerned for nothing on
earth but her own inspired devices for self-development.

For long the two stood speechless before that astonishing, yet
inevitable, third; that miracle of incorporate self-expression, whereby
a man and woman behold their hidden spirits that have so passionately
clung together across the gateless barrier of individual being,
'visibly here commingled and made flesh.' Then Lenox put out a hand
and caressed the small soft head, reverently, cautiously, as if to
verify its actuality. At his touch the child stirred; the dark lashes
lifted; and in that instant of revealing, the truth came home to him
that, by his will, a living soul, a thing of mysterious and infinite
potentialities, had been added to the world's sum of life.

"See--she has your eyes," said Quita, tenderly triumphant; and for the
second time she looked into his own through a mist of tears. "My last
picture pleases you even better than the other one?" she added; and
stooping, he kissed her lips.

"It lifts you into a new kingdom, Quita; and doesn't he honestly seem
to you worth all the rest put together?"

"But yes, _mon ami_. She is my masterpiece--our masterpiece," she
answered very low.

***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GREAT AMULET***

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