“Why, Thea, my love!” remonstrated Mrs. de Vere, who was at the window in an easy-chair knitting silken hose for Master Alan. Thea looked at her in some surprise. “Why not, mother?” she asked. “You forget how cold it is at the North now. How could you take your nursing baby there?” said grandmamma. “That is true. I did not think,” Thea cried, penitently, then her smile faded. “But how could I let Norman go without me?” “And how could I leave you?” cried the lover-husband, fondly; and the dark eyes dwelt on the blue ones with passionate tenderness. “Alan takes precedence of everybody else,” grandmamma announced, peremptorily. “Leave him at home with a wet-nurse,” said Norman. “Oh, I couldn’t! What, be parted from my darling! It would break his little heart,” cried the young mother; and after an excited discussion and floods of tears Master Alan’s interests won the day against his loving parents. Thea, frightened by the idea of croup, dared not take her darling from his Southern home to the wintery North, and could not bear to leave him behind. So Norman must go alone--the first parting from his wife since their marriage. “It will break my heart!” Thea cried, forlornly. “I hate that publishing. Why should he drag you away from your home just now, and Christmas barely over. You will not get home before New Year’s.” “I am afraid I can not, but I will not stay a week if I can help it. Try to be as happy as you can, my darling, without me,” he said, folding her closely to his heart, with bitter reluctance to leave her even for an hour, so dear had she grown. But the summons was imperative. A few hours more and he was on his way, leaving behind him a weeping little wife who felt indeed as if she were heart-broken. But for Baby Alan she must have been inconsolable. A heavy cloud had settled on her spirits, and for the remainder of the day she moped miserably about the house. As evening fell the gloom became almost insupportable. “How sad and dreary everything seems without him!” sighed the devoted young wife; and she took refuge in the nursery with her child, giving leave to the nurse to attend a negro dance in the neighborhood with the other servants. “My little darling, you may be just as cross and naughty as you please. The more trouble I have with you, the less time I shall have to think of your dear absent papa,” she cried, as she hung over the lace-draped crib where he lay, so bright, so beautiful, that she covered his sweet, laughing face with eager kisses. But just because she wanted something to distract her thoughts, Alan was on his good behavior. He responded sleepily to her fond blandishments, and shut his white lids fast in happy slumber just before his fond grandmamma came tiptoeing in for a good-night kiss. “Little darling, how sweet and lovely he is!” she cried, kissing his dimpled white fists. “Are you going to sit up for the nurse, Thea?”