This untimely interruption brought Lottie from her knees, feeling indignant and aggrieved, and as if she was persecuted for righteousness’ sake, and she would neither tell her husband where his slippers were nor ask him where he had been so long, although she was dying to know, and felt almost sure he had visited the Craigs. She knew he had the next day, for he told her so, and said so much in praise of Kitty that she felt a pang of something like jealousy, and avenged herself by driving to the store that afternoon and talking with the confidential clerk so long that her father at last suggested that she go home, as “women were out of place in a business office.” When she and Kitty met again it was at the altar rail, where they knelt side by side, Lottie’s rich velvet cloak brushing against Kitty’s plainer cloth, and the glitter of her rings flashing before Kitty’s eyes. As they rose and turned away Lottie half bowed a recognition, and felt for the remainder of the day as if she were a very good and forgiving woman, inasmuch as Kitty, in her surprise, had not returned the bow. New York was very gay that winter, and Lottie had no leisure to spare to such as Kitty Craig, who would in time have been wholly forgotten but for an event which occurred just one year from the day when John first brought Kitty home as his bride. Then a new little life came into that house; and Lottie, who chanced to be in the city for a few days, was surprised to hear from her husband that he was to stand sponsor for little Frederic Steele, who was to be baptized that afternoon. Would she go and see it? There was a shrug of Lottie’s shoulders and a lifting of her eyebrows, but she made no reply, except: “You and the Craigs must be very intimate to warrant their taking such a liberty. Pray, where have you seen so much of them?” Amasa did not tell her how many of his evenings when she was away were spent in that nutshell of a house, where they had apple pie and ginger-snaps for dessert, or how the sight of the little round-faced boy which John had shown him with so much pride on the occasion of his last visit had raised in his heart a vague dissatisfaction with the stillness of his grand house, where baby voices were never heard. He himself had suggested Frederic Steele, saying: “I won’t ask you to inflict upon him such a name as Amasa, but my only brother was Fred, and I’d like the little chap called for him.”