"Rock-a-bye, baby, thy cradle is green. Papa's a nobleman--mother's a queen," was one of her most admired lullabys. It was a marvelous time for me--the happiest I had known since boyhood. Not even my days of courtship have greater charm to me now. The old soldier was almost as completely subordinated as I. Several times each day he came into the house to say, "Well, how is my granddaughter getting on?" and upon seeing her, invariably remarked, "She's the very image of Belle,"--and indeed she did resemble my mother. He expressed the wish which was alive in my own heart, when he said, "If only Belle could have lived to see her granddaughter." My new daughter was all important, but the new book could not be neglected. _Hesper_ was scheduled for publication in October and copy must go to the printer in August, therefore I was forced to leave my wife and babe and go East to attend to the proof-reading and other matters incidental to the birth of another novel. Some lectures in Chicago and Chautauqua took up nearly two weeks of my time and when I arrived in New York, huge bundles of galley-proof were awaiting me. My publishers were confident that the new book would equal _The Captain of the Gray Horse Troop_ in popularity, but I was less sanguine. For several weeks I toiled on this job, and at last on the eleventh of September, a day of sweltering heat, I got away on the evening train for the West. In spite of my poverty and notwithstanding the tender age of my daughter, I had decided to fetch my family to New York. On November tenth, we found ourselves settled in a small apartment overlooking Morningside Park, which seemed a very desirable playground for Mary Isabel. Relying on my books (which were selling with gratifying persistency) we permitted ourselves a seven-room apartment with a full-sized kitchen and a maid--whom we had brought on from West Salem. We even went so far as to give dinner parties to such of our friends as could be trusted to overlook our lack of plate, and to remain kindly unobservant of the fact that Dora, the baby's nurse, doubled as waitress after cooking the steak. In this unassuming fashion we fed the Hernes, the Severances, and other of our most valued friends who devoured the puddings which Zulime "tossed up," with a gusto highly flattering to her skill, while the sight of me as baby-tender proved singularly amusing--to some of our guests. It will be seen that we were not cutting entirely loose from the principles of economy in which we had been so carefully schooled--our hospitalities had very distinct (enforced) limits.