"Well, no, I did not think it was," acknowledged the woman. "Dr. Dove did not much like its look this morning; I saw that. I suppose he spoke to Mr. Grubb more fully than to me." "Do _you_ think it is in any danger?" The nurse paused before replying. "One can never be quite sure of these very young infants. When it was born, I thought it a nice healthy little thing; yesterday it seemed quiet and peeky, and wailed a bit; this morning it seems anything but well, and does not take its food. Still, my lady, I can't say that it is in danger." Lady Acorn nodded her head and her bonnet two or three times, as if not satisfied with affairs in general, and went back to her daughter's room. The young clergyman came up; things were made ready; and they gathered round in a group at the bedside, kneeling down for the short preparatory prayers used in private baptism. When they arose, the clergyman took the child in his arms from Grace, who had held it. "Name this child." "George," promptly spoke the mother from the bed, her tone giving emphasis to the word. And Francis Grubb's face flushed as he heard it. Ah, what pain was often his! The short service was soon over. Mr. Wilkinson departed for his church; Lady Acorn and Grace followed him. The nurse had gone back to the dressing-room. Mr. Grubb stood by the bed in which the quiet child had again been laid. "I thought you were going to church?" said Lady Adela. "Yes; directly." He wanted especially to go to church that day; to return thanks to God for the mercy vouchsafed him in the preservation of his wife. Though, indeed, he had not waited to be in church to do that. "How quiet the baby was all through it!" cried Adela. "Very quiet. Too quiet, your mother says." "Mamma says all sorts of things when she is in a temper, as you have learnt by this time, and she is in one this morning," was Adela's light, and not over-dutiful remark. Not but that it was true. Mr. Grubb had taken the child in his arms, and stood looking down upon it. Save that its eyes were open and that it breathed, it seemed still enough for death. He did not understand babies, but he did think this one was unnaturally quiet. "Why are you looking at him so attentively?" asked Adela, by-and-by. "I don't think he can be well." "But--you don't think he is ill, do you?" returned she after a pause, and speaking quickly. "Adela, I do not know. He seems to me to have changed a little in the last half-hour, since I first came in. Of course I may be mistaken." "Suppose you send for Dr. Dove?" "I can send if you like: he has only just gone, you know. The nurse does not seem to be"--alarmed, he was about to say, but changed the word--"anxious; so all may be well." He put the baby in its place, and Lady Adela raised her head to look at it. "He gets paler, I think," she observed; "and, as you say, he is very, very quiet. Poor little thing! he has no strength yet."