ppy."

She could not explain her feelings to herself, she had no notion that
she was jealous of her own child; but the pain bit her, and she could
not endure to sit up there at the window and look on. Rising hastily,
she dropped her work out of her hand, and was about to go down into the
garden to join them, when another glance showed her that Basil had
turned and was coming back into the house. Diana listened to them as
they mounted the stairs, Basil's feet and the baby's voice sounding
together, with a curious unrest at her heart, and her eyes met the pair
eagerly as they entered the room. From what impulse she could not have
told, she advanced to meet them, and stretched out her hands to take
the child, which, however, with a little confident cry of delight,
turned from her and clasped both little arms again round her father's
neck. Basil smiled; Diana tried to follow suit.

"She would rather be with you than with me," she remarked, however.

"I wonder at her bad taste!" said Basil. But he turned his face to the
baby, and laid it gently against her soft cheek.

"It is because you are stronger," Diana went in.

"Is it?"

"That is one thing. You may notice children always like strong arms."

"Her mother's arms are not weak."

"No--but I am not so strong as you, Basil, bodily or mentally. And I
think that is more yet--mental strength, I mean. Children recognise
that, and love to rest on it."

"You do not think such discrimination is confined to children?" said
Basil, with a dry, quiet humourousness at which Diana could not help
smiling, though she felt quite as much like a very different
demonstration. She watched the two, as Basil walked on to his
study-table and sat down, with the child on his knee; she saw the
upturned eye of love with which the little one regarded him as he did
this, and then how, with a long breath of satisfaction, she settled
herself in her place, smoothed down her frock, and laid the little
hands contentedly together in her lap. Basil drew his portfolio towards
him and began to write a letter. Diana went to her work again in the
window, feeling restless. She felt she must say something more, and in
a different key, and as she worked she watched the two at the table.
This was not the way things ought to be. Her husband must be told at
least something of the change that had taken place in her; he ought to
know that she was no longer miserable; he would be glad to know that.
Diana thought