In a few moments Marian had heard Katy’s trouble, and Katy’s wish that Mrs. Hubbell should take her child in place of the little one dead. “Perhaps she would not harbor the thought for a moment, but she misses her own so much, it made me think she might take mine. Write to her, Marian,—write to-day,—now, before I go,” Katy continued, clasping Marian’s hand, with an expression which, more than aught else, won Marian Hazelton’s consent to a plan which seemed so strange. “Yes, I will write,” she answered; “I will tell Amelia what you desire.” “But, Marian, you too must go, if baby does—I’ll trust baby with you. Say, Marian, will you go with my darling?” It was hard to refuse, with those great, wistful, pleading eyes, looking so earnestly into hers; but Marian must have time to consider. She had thought of going to New London to open a shop, and if she did, she should board with Mrs. Hubbell, and so be with the child. She would decide when the answer came to the letter. This was all the encouragement she would give; but it was enough to change the whole nature of Katy’s feelings, and her face looked bright and cheerful as she tripped down the stairway, talking to Helen of what seemed to both like a direct interposition of Providence, and what she was sure would please Wilford quite as well as the farm-house up the river. “Surely he will yield to me in this,” she said. Nor was she wrong; for, glad of an opportunity to make some concessions, and still in the main have his own way, Wilford raised no objection to the plan as communicated to him by Katy, when, at an earlier hour than usual he came home to dinner, and with the harmony of his household once more restored, felt himself a model husband, as he listened to Katy’s plan of sending baby to New London. On the whole, it might be better even than the farm-house up the river, he thought, for it was further away, and Katy could not be tiring herself with driving out every few days, and keeping herself constantly uneasy and excited. The distance between New York and New London was the best feature of the whole; and he wondered Katy had not thought of it as an objection. But she had not, and but for the pain when she remembered the coming separation, she would have been very happy that evening, listening with Wilford and Helen to a new opera brought out for the first time in New York. Very differently from this was Marian’s evening passed, and on her face there was a look such as Katy’s had never worn, as she asked for guidance to choose the right, to lay all self aside, and if it were her duty, to care for the child she had never seen, but whose birth had stirred the pulsations of her heart and made the old wound bleed and throb with bitter anguish. And as she prayed there crept into her face a look which told that self was sacrificed at last, and Katy Cameron was safe with her. * * * * *