Elizabeth took the poor little toy, and looked at it curiously. She must have possessed such things once, but it was as hard to picture her with a doll as with a rattle. She seemed equally remote from both. As she turned it over, an inspiration came to her. "I tell you what we'll do," she said; "we'll take it for your baby,--it's time one of us had a child,--and we'll get up a grand christening. Do you want a son or a daughter?" "I hope we won't have Annie Churchill for a priest," was my irrelevant answer. "No, we won't," said Elizabeth. "I'll be the priest, and Tony and Lilly can be godparents. And then, after its christening, the baby can die,--in its baptismal innocence, you know,--and we'll bury it." I was silent. Elizabeth raised her candid eyes to mine. "You don't want it, do you?" she asked. "I don't want it," I answered slowly. Marie decided that, as our first-born was to die, it had better be a girl. A son and heir should live to inherit the estates. She contributed a handkerchief for a christening robe; and Emily, who was generous to a fault, insisted on giving a little new work-basket, beautifully lined with blue satin, for a coffin. Lilly found a piece of white ribbon for a sash. Tony gave advice, and Elizabeth her priestly benediction. Beata Benedicta della Rovere ("That name shows she's booked for Heaven," said Tony) was christened in the _bénitier_ at the chapel door; Elizabeth performing the ceremony, and Tony and Lilly unctuously renouncing in her behalf the works and pomps of Satan. It was a more seemly service than our wedding had been, but it was only a prelude, after all, to the imposing rites of burial. These were to take place at the recreation hour the following afternoon; but owing to the noble infant's noble kinsmen not having any recreation hour when the afternoon came, the obsequies were unavoidably postponed.