Rowan, junior, was king of the Circle Diamond from his birth. He ruled imperiously over the hearts of the three women. It was natural that Ruth should love him from the moment that they put him in her arms and his little heel kicked her in the side. He was the symbol of the love of Rowan that glowed so steadfastly in her soul. So she worshipped him for his own sake and for the sake of the man she had married. The small body that breathed so close to her, so helpless and so soft, filled her with everlasting wonder and delight. His daily bath was a function. Ruth presided over it herself, but Norma, and often Mrs. Stovall, too, made excuses to be present. His plump legs wrinkled into such kissable creases as he lay on his back and waved them in the air, his smiling little mouth was such an adorable Cupid’s bow that the young mother vowed in her heart there never had been such a boy since time began. But she did not coddle him. His mother had read the latest books on the care of babies, and she intended to bring him up scientifically. He spent a large part of his time sleeping on a screened porch, and, as he grew older, Ruth took him with her when she drove over the place on business. In every letter she wrote Rowan the baby held first place, but she was careful to show him that the boy was _his_ son as well as hers, a bond between them from the past and a promise for the future. In one letter she wrote: I took Boy up into the pine copse back of the house this afternoon. We were there, you and I and he, and we had such a lovely time. Isn’t it strange, dear, that the things we care about become so infinitely a part of all life that touches us? There is no beautiful thing of sound or vision or colour—no poignancy of thought or feeling—that does not become a sign, somehow, for the special gladness—as though, at bottom, all beauty and dearness rested on the same foundation. To-day the wind has blown swift and gray and strong, so that the hills are purple with it, and the marching pines are touched to a low, tremendous murmur. It is magnificent, as though something too vast and solemn for sight passed by and one could hear only the sweeping of its wings. And the thrill of it is one and the same with the gladness of your letter of yesterday. There is in the heart of them both something finer and bigger than I once could have conceived. While I was putting Rowan, junior, to bed I showed him your picture—the one the Denver _Times_ photographer took just after you won the championship last year—and he reached out his dimpled fingers for it and spluttered, “Da-da-da-da-da.” I believe he knows you belong to him. Before I put his nightie on I kissed his dear little pink body for you.