cuse to take from me. I hear
they've been to a lawyer twice, already. I wouldn't give her up to
save my soul alive, for myself; for you, if I would let you have her,
they would not leave you in possession a day."

"Are they really trying to get her?" asked Nancy Ellen, slowly
loosening her grip.

"They are," said Kate. "They sent a lawyer to get a copy of the
papers, to see if they could pick a flaw in them."

"Can they?" cried Nancy Ellen.

"God knows!" said Kate, slowly. "I HOPE not. Mr. Thomlins is the best
lawyer in Hartley; he says not. He says Henry put his neck in the
noose when he signed the papers. The only chance I can see for him
would be to plead undue influence. When you look at her, you can't
blame him for wanting her. I've two hopes. One that his mother will
not want the extra work; the other that the next girl he selects will
not want the baby. If I can keep them going a few months more with a
teething scare, I hope they will get over wanting her."

"If they do, then may we have her?" asked Nancy Ellen.

Kate threw out her hands. "Take my eyes, or my hands, or my feet," she
said; "but leave me my heart."

Nancy Ellen went soon after, and did not come again for several days.
Then she began coming as usual, so that the baby soon knew her and
laughed in high glee when she appeared. Dr. Gray often stopped in
passing to see her; if he was in great haste, he hallooed at the gate
to ask if she was all right. Kate was thankful for this, more than
thankful for the telephone and car that would bring him in fifteen
minutes day or night, if he were needed. But he was not needed.
Little Poll throve and grew fat and rosy; for she ate measured food,
slept by the clock, in a sanitary bed, and was a bathed, splendidly
cared for baby. When Kate's family and friends laughed, she paid not
the slightest heed.

"Laugh away," she said. "I've got something to fight with this baby; I
don't propose for the battle to come and find the chances against me,
because I'm unprepared."

With scrupulous care Kate watched over the child, always putting her
first, the house and land afterward. One day she looked up the road
and saw Henry Peters coming. She had been expecting Nancy Ellen. She
had finished bathing the baby and making her especially attractive in a
dainty lace ruffled dress with blue ribbons and blue shoes that her
sister had brought on her latest trip. Little Poll was a wonderful
picture, for h