In the fulness of time, the Brenton baby came, a sturdy little youngster who, from the start, kicked lustily and lifted up his voice out of a pair of brazen lungs that made the domestic welkin ring. Kathryn, somewhat weak and very languid, opened her eyes listlessly, when the nurse approached the bed, the new-born heir, swaddled and shrieking, in her capable arms. "Here's the baby, Mrs. Brenton!" she announced, and there was as much triumph in her tone as if it were the first child of her forty years' experience in nursing, not the last. "Thank you, nurse. I'm sure she's very nice. And will you please tell Mr. Brenton," for Scott still was rigidly barred out from the room; "that I think we'll name her Katharine--" "But, ma'am--" Imperious in spite of her weakness, Kathryn ignored the attempted interruption. "--Katharine, for me and for my grandmother." "But, Mrs. Brenton, it's a boy." Kathryn gave a start of indignation. "Nurse, how stupid! Of course, it is a little girl." But the nurse responded stolidly,-- "It aint, though; it's a boy." Kathryn's eyes drooped wearily. "Well, never mind about that now. There must be some mistake, though, for my heart was set on having a little girl. Anyway, you can tell Mr. Brenton it's all right. And now, nurse, I think I'll try to take a nap." "And shall I leave the baby, ma'am?" Kathryn, already settling her cheek upon her hand, stirred wearily. "Certainly not, nurse, if he's going to cry like that," she said, with querulous decision. That was late at night. Next morning, she aroused herself to some slight show of interest as concerned the child. "It's such a disappointment to have him a boy," she still lamented. "Boys' clothes are so very ugly. However," lifting herself up upon her elbow, she stared down at the puckered face in the nest of soft white flannel; then she fell back again with a little shiver of disgust; "for the matter of that, nurse, he's very ugly, too." This time, the nurse felt herself justified in indignant remonstrance. Indeed, in all her forty years of nursing, she never had been in contact with a mother who was so unappreciative. "Ugly, Mrs. Brenton!" Her voice gathered force and fervour, as she went on. "How can you say so? He's a puffic' fibbous."