jeered her--"even for a
kingdom!"

"You have five more, and may have another five--or twenty-five. It
looks like it."

"But none to spare. Besides, you won't want other people's children
when you get your own. How about her being the heiress then?"

"I shall never have children of my own," said Deb, with tightened lips.
"That is why I want to adopt one." Rose laughed the idea to scorn.

"Of course you will!" cried she. "You must. All the money in the world
is nothing compared with a baby. I wouldn't give one of mine for twenty
fortunes--not if I had to earn their keep at the wash-tub."

"Not even for the child's own advantage?"

"It is not to any child's advantage to grow up thinking that its mother
did not care to be a mother to it," said Rose. "Nor yet--possibly--to
grow up to look down on her."

"Rose!" Deb's guilty face flamed scarlet.

"Or on her father," Rose continued, with soft but firm persistence.
"She must have a father too, Deb, and Peter would not give his job away
any more than I would give mine. He thinks the world of them all. He is
just as good a father as he is a husband," with a lift of head and
lighting of eye. "Come to me, my precious!" as the baby whimpered.
"Come to its own mother, then! No, no, Debbie dear, you be a mother
yourself in the natural and proper way; you will find it a deal better
than being rich. Marry some good, kind man straight away, before you
waste any more of your young years. I am sure there must be dozens
dying to have you."

"Dying to have the handling of Mr Thornycroft's money," said Deb, with
a bitterness that surprised her sister.

"Oh, no," said she; "you are sufficient attraction without that."

"I shall never know it. But this," thought Deb, "is a very Breen-like
turn that the conversation is taking. These people--and Rose has become
one of them--have quite the tradesman's idea of marriage. Any 'good,
kind man' will do. They cannot be expected to understand." She watched
Rose billowing down into her nursing-chair, and pretended to herself
that she was not envious. "It would have been a wildly-rash experiment
to adopt this child, and I shall probably live to be thankful that my
offer was refused," she inwardly argued, while her beautiful eyes
melted at the spectacle of the happy mother snuggling the babe to her
bared breast. "It is a charming little creature now, but it would
probably grow up common, whatever its education and environment. Blood
will tell.