When they arrived at the house Aaron left Mr. Moss in the room below, and ran up to ascertain if Rachel had been disturbed. She had not moved since he last quitted the room, and an expression of profound peace was settling on her face. His own child lay white and still; a heavy sigh escaped him as he gazed upon the inanimate tiny form. He closed the door softly, and rejoined his friend. "I will not stay with you, Cohen," said Mr. Moss; "you will have enough to do. To-morrow you must get a woman to assist in the house. You have the fifty pounds safe?" Aaron nodded. "I have some more money to give you, twenty-five pounds, three months' payment in advance of the allowance to be made to you for the rearing of the child. Here it is, and here, also, is the address of the London lawyers, who will remit to you regularly at the commencement of every quarter. I shall not leave Gosport till eleven in the morning, and if you have anything to say to me I shall be at the Salutation till that hour. Good-night, Cohen; I wish you happiness and good fortune." Alone with the babe, who lay on the sofa, which had been drawn up to the fire, Aaron stood face to face with the solemn responsibility he had taken upon himself, and with the still more solemn deception to which he was pledged. For a while he hardly dared to uncover the face of the sleeping child, but time was precious, and he nerved himself to the necessity. He sat on the sofa, and gently removed the wrappings which had protected the child from the cold night, but had not impeded its powers of respiration. A feeling of awe stole upon him; the child he was gazing on might have been his own dead child, so startling was the resemblance between them. There was a little hair upon the pretty head, as there was upon the head of his dead babe; it was dark, as hers was; there was a singular resemblance in the features of the children; the limbs, the feet, the little baby hands, the pouting mouth, might have been cast in the same mold. The subtle instinct of a mother's love would have enabled her to know instinctively which of the two was her own babe, but it would be necessary for that mother to be blessed with sight before she could arrive at her unerring conclusion. A father could be easily deceived, and the tender age of the children would have been an important--perhaps the chief--factor in doubt. "Surely," Aaron thought as he contemplated the sleeping babe, "this is a sign that I am acting rightly." Men less devout than he might have regarded it as a divine interposition.