s no
annoyance--no sharp pain, that even in that first bridal hour she was not
first and sole, as every woman may righteously wish to be. There came
to her no sting of regret, scarcely unnatural, to watch another woman's
children already taking the first and best of that fatherly love which it
would be such exquisite joy to see lavished upon her own. Alas! poor
Christian! all these things passed over her as the wind passes over a
bare February tree, stirring no emotions, for there were none to stir.
Her predominating feeling was a vague sense of relief in the presence
of the children, and of delight in the exceeding beauty of the youngest.

"This is Oliver. I remember you told me his name. Will he come to
me? children generally do," said she in a shy sort of way, but still
holding out her arms. In her face and manner was that inexplicable
motherliness which some girls have even while nursing their dolls
--some never; ay, though they may boast of a houseful of children--
never!

Master Oliver guessed this by instinct, as children always do. He
looked at her intently, a queer, mischievous, yet penetrating look; then
broke into a broad, genial laugh, quite Bacchic and succumbed.
Christian, the solitary governess, first the worse than orphan, and then
the real orphan, without a friend or relative in the world, felt a child
clinging round her neck--a child toward whom, by the laws of God and
man, she was bound to fulfill all the duties of a mother--duties which,
from the time when she insisted on having a "big doll," that she might
dress it, not like a fine lady, but "like a baby," had always seemed to
her the very sweetest in all the world. Her heart leaped with a sudden
ecstasy, involuntary and uncontrollable.

"My bonny boy!" she murmured, kissing the top of that billowy curl
which extended from brow to crown--"my curl"--for Oliver
immediately and proudly pointed it to her. "And to think that his
mother never saw him. Poor thing! poor thing!"

Dr. Grey turned away to the window. What remembrances, bitter or
sweet, came over the widower's heart, Heaven knows! But he kept
them between himself and Heaven, as he did all things that were
incommunicable and inevitable, and especially all things that could
have given pain to any human being. He only said on returning,

"I knew, Christian, from the first, that you would be a good mother to
my children."

She looked up at him, the tears in her eyes, but with a g