"Now I lame me down to sleep--no, I want to say another one to-night, Lord God, if Thee please. This is a very particular night, because my father is in it. Bless my father, Lord God, oh, bless my father! This is his day. I've loved him all day, and I'm going to again day after to-morrow. But to-morrow I must love my mother. It would be easier to love them both forever and ever, Amen." The Child slipped into bed and slept happily, but the man who was father of the Child had new thoughts to think, and it took time. He found he had not thought nearly all of them in his afternoon vigil. On his way back to his lonely study he walked a little slower past the other lonely study. The stooping of the slender figure newly troubled him. The plan worked satisfactorily to the Child, though there was always the danger of getting the days mixed. The first mother-day had been as "intimate" and delightful as the first father-one. They followed each other intimately and delightfully in a long succession. Marie found her perfunctory services less and less in requisition, and her dazed comprehension of things was divided equally with her self-gratulation. Life in this new and unexpected condition of affairs was easier to Marie. "I'm having a beautiful time," the Child one day reported to the Lady, "only sometimes I get a little dizzy trying to remember which is which. My father is which to-day." And it was at that bedtime, after an unusually active day, that the Child fell asleep at her prayer. Her rumpled head sagged more and more on her delicate neck, till it rested sidewise on the supporting knees, and the Child was asleep. There was a slight stir in the doorway. "'Sh! don't move--sit perfectly still!" came in a whisper as a slender figure moved forward softly into the room. "Richard, don't move! The poor little tired thing--do you think you could slip out without moving while I hold up her head--oh, I mean without _joggling?_ Now--oh, mamma's little tired baby! There, there!--'Sh! Now you hold her head and let me sit down--now put her here in my arms, Richard." The transfer was safely made. They faced each other, she with her baby, he standing looking down at them. Their eyes met steadily. The Child's regular breathing alone stirred the silence of the little white room. Then he stooped to kiss the Child's face as she stooped, and their kisses seemed to meet. She did not start away, but smiled instead. "I want her every day, Richard!" she said. "_I_ want her every day, Mary!" "Then there is only one way. Last night she prayed to have things changed round--" "Yes, Polly?" "We'll change things round, Dick." The Child was smiling in her sleep as if she heard them. Chapter XI The Recompense