was not much more than eight o'clock when he went up the stone steps
to the door of Tessa's room. Usually she heard his entrance into the
house, and ran to meet him, but not to-night; and when he opened the
door he saw the reason. A single dim light was burning above the dying
fire, and showed Tessa in a kneeling attitude by the head of the bed
where the baby lay. Her head had fallen aside on the pillow, and her
brown rosary, which usually hung above the pillow over the picture of
the Madonna and the golden palm-branches, lay in the loose grasp of her
right-hand. She had gone fast asleep over her beads. Tito stepped
lightly across the little room, and sat down close to her. She had
probably heard the opening of the door as part of her dream, for he had
not been looking at her two moments before she opened her eyes. She
opened them without any start, and remained quite motionless looking at
him, as if the sense that he was there smiling at her shut out any
impulse which could disturb that happy passiveness. But when he put his
hand under her chin, and stooped to kiss her, she said--

"I dreamed it, and then I said it was dreaming--and then I awoke, and it
was true."

"Little sinner!" said Tito, pinching her chin, "you have not said half
your prayers. I will punish you by not looking at your baby; it is
ugly."

Tessa did not like those words, even though Tito was smiling. She had
some pouting distress in her face, as she said, bending anxiously over
the baby--

"Ah, it is not true! He is prettier than anything. You do not think he
is ugly. You will look at him. He is even prettier than when you saw
him before--only he's asleep, and you can't see his eyes or his tongue,
and I can't show you his hair--and it grows--isn't that wonderful? Look
at him! It's true his face is very much all alike when he's asleep,
there is not so much to see as when he's awake. If you kiss him very
gently, he won't wake: you want to kiss him, is it not true?"

He satisfied her by giving the small mummy a butterfly kiss, and then
putting his hand on her shoulder and turning her face towards him, said,
"You like looking at the baby better than looking at your husband, you
false one!"

She was still kneeling, and now rested her hands on his knee, looking up
at him like one of Fra Lippo Lippi's round-cheeked adoring angels.

"No," she said, shaking her head; "I love you always best, only I want
you to look at the bambino and