," Rose said, crying heartily, as she clung to her brother. "Why, it's
the most wonderful thing I ever heard! Poor Louis Barry can't believe
it--he broke down completely! And Kitty was crying, and kissing the
children, and she knelt down, and put her arms about Norma's knees; and
Norma was crying, too--you never saw anything like it!"

"She never told me a word about it," Wolf said, trying to laugh, and
blinking, as he looked at her, a few feet away. One of her arms was
about his mother, her hand was in Harry's, her face close to the rosy
baby's face.

"Wolf," his sister said, earnestly, drying her eyes, "it will bring a
blessing on your own children----!"

"Ah, Rose!" he answered, quickly. "Pray that there is one, some day--one
of our own as sweet as yours are!"

"Ah, you'll have everything, you two, never fear!" she said, radiantly.
And then a gate opened, and the bustle about them thickened, and
laughing faces grew pale, and last words faltered.

Harry gave Rose the baby, and put his arm about Rose's mother, and they
watched them go, the red-cap leading with the suit-cases, Wolf carrying
another, Norma on his arm, twisting herself about, at the very last
second, to smile an April smile over her shoulder, and wave the green
jade handle of her slim little umbrella. There was just a glimpse of
Wolf's old boyish, proud, protecting smile, and then his head drooped
toward his companion, and the surging crowd shut them out of sight.

Then Rose immediately was concerned for the little baby. Wouldn't it be
wiser to go straight home, just for fear that Mrs. Noon might have
fallen asleep--and the house caught on fire----? Mrs. Sheridan blew her
nose and dried her eyes, and straightened her widow's bonnet, and
cleared her throat, and agreed that it would. And they all went away.

But there was another watcher who had shared, unseen, all this last
half-hour, and who stood immovable to the last second, until the iron
gates had actually clashed shut. It was a well-built, keen-eyed man, in
an irreproachably fitting fur-collared overcoat, who finally turned
away, fitting his eyeglasses, on their black ribbon, firmly upon the
bridge of his nose, and sighing just a little as he went back to the
sidewalk, and climbed into a waiting roadster.

Even after he took his seat at the wheel, he made no effort to start the
car, but sat slowly drawing on his heavy gloves, and staring
abstractedly at the dull, uninteresting stretch of stre