“It won't be my fault if it isn't,” he replied, with a yawn. “How good you are, Bartley!” she said, with an admiring look, as if it were the goodness of God she was praising. Bartley released himself, and went to the new crib, in which the baby lay, and with his hands in his pockets stood looking down at it with a curious smile. “Is it pretty?” she asked, envious of his bird's-eye view of the baby. “Not definitively so,” he answered. “I dare say she will smooth out in time; but she seems to be considerably puckered yet.” “Well,” returned Marcia, with forced resignation, “I shouldn't let any one else say so.” Her husband set up a soft, low, thoughtful whistle. “I'll tell you what, Marcia,” he said presently. “Suppose we name this baby after your father?” She lifted herself on her elbow, and stared at him as if he must be making fun of her. “Why, how could we?” she demanded. Squire Gaylord's parents had called his name Flavius Josephus, in a superstition once cherished by old-fashioned people, that the Jewish historian was somehow a sacred writer. “We can't name her Josephus, but we can call her Flavia,” said Bartley. “And if she makes up her mind to turn out a blonde, the name will just fit. Flavia,--it's a very pretty name.” He looked at his wife, who suddenly turned her face down on the pillow. “Bartley Hubbard,” she cried, “you're the best man in the world!” “Oh, no! Only the second-best,” suggested Bartley. In these days they took their fill of the delight of young fatherhood and motherhood. After its morning bath Bartley was called in, and allowed to revere the baby's mottled and dimpled back as it lay face downward on the nurse's lap, feebly wiggling its arms and legs, and responding with ineffectual little sighs and gurgles to her acceptable rubbings with warm flannel. When it was fully dressed, and its long clothes pulled snugly down, and its limp person stiffened into something tenable, he was suffered to take it into his arms, and to walk the room with it. After all, there is not much that a man can actually do with a small baby, either for its pleasure or his own, and Barkley's usefulness had its strict limitations. He was perhaps most beneficial when he put the child in its mother's arms, and sat down beside the bed, and quietly talked, while Marcia occasionally put up a slender hand, and smoothed its golden brown hair, bending her neck over to look at it where it lay, with the action of a mother bird. They examined with minute interest the details of the curious little creature: its tiny finger-nails, fine and sharp, and its small queer fist doubled so tight, and closing on one's finger like a canary's claw on a perch; the absurdity of its foot, the absurdity of its toes, the ridiculous inadequacy of its legs and arms to the work ordinarily expected of legs and arms, made them laugh. They could not tell yet whether its eyes would be black like Marcia's, or blue like Bartley's; those long lashes had the sweep of hers,