white satin which Alice had chosen to declare to every chance spectator the proud pre-eminence of his sex--a boy! I put on my own simple straw bonnet and went out with him, straying along the quiet roads, up and down the bank of the river, perfectly indifferent of what all the world might think, and smiling when I passed some genteel young mother of the village, with her little maid trudging behind, carrying her baby. I trust my precious Harry in indifferent hands!--No--I only laughed at Alice's oratory as to what became my station. I had no station here, and wanted none. The curate's wife might lose caste if she wandered about, a volunteer nursemaid, with her child--but I was entirely free to follow my own will, and follow it I did, as, alas! I had always done all my days. I do not wonder that the people were bewildered what to think of me, and that gossip almost came to an end out of sheer amazement. I was always dressed with the most extreme simplicity and plainness, but I always wore upon my finger that splendid hereditary diamond which was the curse of our house. It was to be supposed that I could not afford a nurse, yet there never had been seen such a magnificent baby wardrobe--very strange, nobody could make it out; and even the rector's wife, who paid me the extraordinary honor of a visit, after baby's baptism--though why she came I could not conceive, for she was a great lady, and chary of her patronage--looked round with an odd, amused, bewildered smile at the luxurious cradle, standing beside the hard hair-cloth sofa, and seemed slightly disposed to speak to me as she might have spoken to a capricious child; but I was wonderfully little moved by anything said to me, or of me; I went upon my own way undisturbed. All those bright summer forenoons I walked about with my baby watching my sweet flowers grow and flourish in the sunshine, myself enjoying the glory and the beauty of those summer days, as I never had enjoyed them before; sometimes I sat down upon a sunny bank near the river, when little Harry was asleep, and watched the ecstasy and rapture of the ships, as they flowed down entranced towards the struggles and tempests of the sea. I never wearied of my sweet burden, though I was so proud to say he grew heavier every day, and made boastful complaints of his weight, as mothers use. Often my thoughts were grave enough; sometimes I wept over my beautiful boy, but I could not resist the influences round me, the supreme delight of looking at his slumbering face--the sweet air that refreshed my own--the beautiful scene that still had power to charm me out of my heavy thoughts. Many doubts and many questions had agitated my mind since the day of my baby's birth, that day so full of joy, yet of humiliation and anguish. I had never recovered entirely from the depression which my husband's stolen visit to see his child had occasioned me. At the very time my heart was softening to former