A smile was on Mary’s face--a strange tender smile, full of all the softness of her veiled and gentle soul. She took out something tenderly and reverently, as if it had been a sacred thing. The curious nurse, peering behind these two absorbed women, expecting to see some mystery, felt herself to come down from imaginative poetic heights to the commonest familiar ground when she saw what it was. Ford almost laughed with the surprise, but dared not, so strong was the sensation of passionate feeling that seemed to fill the air. What Lady Frogmore took from the box was the first little garment that is ever put upon a child. A little film of lawn, not much more; the most delicate and softest of fabrics made to fold over the delicate body, in exquisite softness and whiteness, as if the finest fairy web of earth had been chosen to wrap the little thing new-born, come from among the angels. It was unfinished--a narrow line of very fine lace only half-sewn round the little sleeves. Mary took it up and held it in her hands, spread out upon them. Oh, what soft suggestions of trembling happiness, of wonderful anticipation, of tender mystery, and dreams were in it! “What is this?” she said, in a whisper; “tell me what it is.” Agnes had put her arms round her sister, leaning upon her--she who was usually the strong one, the supporter and prop--and laid her head on Mary’s shoulder. The sight of the little tender relic, so familiar, so full of suggestion on this night of fate, overcame her altogether. Oh, to think of the infant for whom that little wrapper of softness had been made; whom his mother, who had made it with such holy and tender thoughts, had never known; who was lying now between life and death, perhaps having crossed the awful boundary lingering near them, breathing into her long-closed and stupefied heart. Agnes could make no answer. She sobbed convulsively upon her sister’s shoulder. “Oh, my baby, my boy, my little Mar, my little Mar!” she cried, with a poignant tone of anguish which pierced the soft air, the soft silence of the night, like something keen and terrible, a sharp blade and point of passionate human feeling. Mary held up the stronger woman with a rally of her own strength, but did not move otherwise. Her eyes were full of tears, but there was no anguish in them. She said in a low voice, like the coo of a dove, “No one need tell me. I know. It was I who made it for my baby--my baby! And he was born. I remember now everything. The old mother was there--my mother--don’t you know--and so proud. And my old lord, my dear old lord--with his heir---- Agnes, Agnes!” she cried, suddenly, “what have you done to me, to keep me so long from my boy?”