A moment later a portly matron entered the room bearing in her arms a lovely babe about a month old, arrayed in a richly embroidered robe, and wrapped in the softest and whitest of flannels. Alice Damon uttered an eager cry, in which the tenderest mother-love and the keenest pain were blended, as she caught sight of the beautiful child who recalled so vividly her own lost treasure. Starting from her seat she glided swiftly over the soft carpet, and the next moment the tiny creature was clasped close to her aching heart, while a sob burst from her as she pressed her quivering lips to its velvet cheek. Then she turned to her husband with it still in her arms. “Oh, August, she is lovely!” she murmured, in husky, unsteady tones. “And, dear, my heart longs for her!” Mr. Damon stood looking down upon the two for a moment, while he seemed struggling with some deep emotion. He took one of the little soft hands that lay outside the heavily wrought blanket tenderly in his own, and bent for a nearer view of the small face. “Her eyes are blue,” he said, under his breath. “Yes, like our own darling’s. Oh, August, we will take her, will we not?” pleaded his wife, eagerly. A look of fondest love leaped into his eyes as they met hers, but he did not reply to her just then. He turned again to Mrs. Marston. “I have an important question which I feel it necessary to ask you?” he began. “In a moment,” she returned, and signed to the nurse to withdraw. “Now, if you please,” she added, as the door closed after the woman. “Is your child legitimate? If you can assure me of that, and that nothing of dishonor can ever touch her in the future, and that, as far as you know, she inherits no taint of insanity or incurable disease, I see no reason why we should not accede to your conditions and adopt the babe as our own.” Mrs. Marston’s face had grown crimson during this speech, and her eyes flamed with anger. Twice that week she had been obliged to meet this humiliating suspicion, and it was more than her proud spirit could endure. “Do you presume——” she began, haughtily. “Madame,” August Damon interrupted, gravely, but with the utmost respect, “pray do not accuse me of presumption when I have only the well-being of your own child at heart. If you will but consider a moment you cannot fail to realize that it is both natural and proper I should wish to be assured that the child I contemplate taking as my own is of honorable parentage, and with no heritage of future misery hanging over her. We shall, of course, use every precaution to prevent her from ever realizing that she is not our very own; but there may come a time when unforeseen events will lead her to suspect the truth, and then she will demand to be told her history. I must have it in my power to tell her that no story of shame, no stain, was attached to her birth.”