“You will not absolve me from my oath of secrecy respecting our marriage, though now that I have offended you, I may starve or go to the work-house. I cannot break my oath, though you have broken _all_ yours, but I am determined that you _shall_ acknowledge your child. I am going to leave her to-night in your rooms with her clothes. By midnight I shall be out of the country. I do this because I have obtained a good situation, and because when I reach my destination I shall have spent my last shilling. I give you fair warning, however, that if you desert the child, or fail to acknowledge her, I will break my oath and proclaim our marriage. If you engage a nurse she will not be much trouble. She is a good and sweet-tempered child, and I have called her Mary, after your dear mother. Oh, how she would pity me if she could see me now! Farewell.” From that moment Bootles absolved “the fellows” from any share in the affair; but what to do with the child he had not the least idea. “It is the very devil,” he said aloud, watching the busy fingers still playing with his chain. He gathered it awkwardly in his arms, and rose to look for the clothing spoken of in the letter. Yes, there it was, a parcel of goodly size, wrapped in a stout brown paper cover, and on the chair beside his cot lay the out-door garments of a young child—a white coat bordered with fur, a fur-trimmed cap, and some other things, which Bootles did not quite understand the use of; white wool fingerless gloves (at least he did not know what else they could be), and some longer things of the same class, like stockings without feet. Bootles shook his head bewilderingly. “Mother means it to stop; _I_ don’t know what to do,” he said, helplessly. It occurred to him then that perhaps some of the fellows might be able to make a suggestion. He did not know what to do with the child for the night, nor, for the matter of that, what to do with it for the moment. He had the sense not to take it out into the chill midnight air, and when he attempted to put it back into the cot it rebelled, clinging to his watch-chain with might and main. “Well, have it then,” he said, slipping it off. The baby, pleased with the glittering toy, set up a cry of delight, and Bootles took the opportunity of slipping out. He entered the anteroom with a very rueful face, finding it pretty much as he had left it. Lacy was the first to catch sight of him. “Halloo, Bootles, what’s the mat-tah?” he asked. “Is your head worse?” “My head? Oh, I forgot all about it,” Bootles replied. “But, I say, I’m in a mess. There’s a baby in my room.” “A WHAT?” they cried, with one voice. “A baby,” repeated Bootles, dismally. “Al—ive?” asked Lacy, with his head on one side.