“Gone out to make some sick calls; he will be home by noon. But here I am chatting away and forgetting that you have had no breakfast. We breakfasted two hours ago!” laughed Mrs. Campbell as she put her hand out to the bell rope and rang. Elspeth Longman came in, smiled and nodded. “Good-morning, ma’am,” to Jennie, and then went to work to lay the cloth for her breakfast. It was soon spread upon the table—good coffee, rich cream, muffins, fresh butter, grilled ham and poached eggs. Mrs. Campbell gave the baby to Elspeth and sat down to pour out the coffee for her prodigal daughter. “Ah, mamma! You remember our old feeling, yours and mine, that a draught poured out by beloved hands has the power of life-giving to the spirit as well as to the body,” said Jennie as she received the cup from her mother. “And the same may be said of work gifts, my dear. Your little Shetland veil that you knit for me years ago, always seemed full as it could hold of your dear love, and its touch on my face like your caress,” replied Mrs. Campbell. While they sat at table Elspeth Longman stood at one of the windows with the baby in her arms, tapping on the panes to make the child look out on the blue sky and the evergreen trees. “I shall stop calling baby ‘Baby’ now, mamma. She is going to be named after you—Esther. It is too grown up a name to call a little baby in common. And we can’t call her Hetty, because that is your pet name. Now what shall we call her for short?” “Essy,” replied the young grandmother. “Essy, then, it shall be. Mind, Mrs. Longman. Our baby is to the christened Esther, after mamma, and we are to call her Essy for short.” “Very well, ma’am; it is a pretty name,” said the woman at the window. “And we will have her christened on Sunday, mamma. We must wait for Sunday, because I remember papa’s preference for christening babies on Sunday, unless there should be some pressing necessity to perform the ceremony on a week day.” “There’s grandpa!” exclaimed Elspeth to the baby, tapping on the window. And the next instant, the Rev. James Campbell—otherwise familiarly and affectionately in his own family called “Jimmy”—entered the house and walked into the room. He kissed his daughter good-morning, and then took his stand on the rug, with his back to the fire, looking so grave that his wife grew anxious, but forbore to question him in the presence of their newly returned daughter. “And perhaps, after all,” she reflected, “it is nothing very personal. He may have just returned from the deathbed of a parishioner. Such scenes always affect him, more for the sake of those left behind than for the departed, for he has too much faith to fret after the freed soul.” While Mrs. Campbell was turning these thoughts over in her mind, and Mr. Campbell was standing in silence on the rug, Jennie finished her breakfast and arose and took her crowing baby from the arms of Elspeth, that the latter might clear off the table.