As to Tod--well, Tod turned her thoughts in another direction. He was a beauty, and a king, and a darling, and he was growing sweeter and brighter every day,--which comments, by the way, were always the first made upon the subject of the immortal Tod. He was so amiable, too, and so clever and so little trouble. He went to sleep in his crib every night at seven, and never awakened until morning. Aunt Dolly might look at him now with those two precious middle fingers in his little mouth. And Aunt Dolly did look at him, lifting the cover slightly, and bending over him as he lay there making a deep dent in his small, plump pillow,--a very king of babies, soft and round and warm, the white lids drooped and fast closed over his dark eyes, their long fringes making a faint shadow on his fair, smooth baby cheeks, the two fingers in his sweet mouth, the round, cleft chin turned up, the firm, tiny white pillar of a throat bare. “Oh, my bonny baby!” cried Dolly, the words rising from the bottom of her heart, “how fair and sweet you are!” They managed to persuade Mrs. Phil to allow them to take possession of him for the night; and when they went up-stairs Dolly carried him, folded warmly in his downy blanket, and held close and tenderly in her arms. “Aunt Dolly's precious!” Aimée heard her whispering to him as she gave him a last soft good-night kiss before they fell asleep. “Aunt Dolly's comfort! Everything is not gone so long as he is left.” But she evidently passed a restless night. When Aimée awakened in the morning she found her standing by the bedside, dressed and looking colorless and heavy-eyed. “I never was so glad to see morning in my life,” she said. “I thought the day would never break. I--I wonder how long it will be before Grif will be reading his letter?” “He may get it before nine o'clock,” answered Aimée; “but don't trouble about it, or the day will seem twice as long. Take Tod down-stairs and wash and dress him. It will give you something else to think of.” The wise one herself had not slept well. Truth to say, she was troubled about more matters than one. She was troubled to account for the meaning of Dolly's absence with Gowan. Even in her excitement, Dolly had not felt the secret quite her own, and had only given a skeleton explanation of the true state of affairs. “It was something about Mollie and Gerald Chan-dos,” she had said; “and if I had not gone it would have been worse than death to Mollie. Don't ask me to tell you exactly what it was, because I can't. Perhaps Mollie will explain herself before many days are over. She always tells you everything, you know. But it was no real fault of here; she was silly, but not wicked, and she is safe from Gerald Chandos now forever. And _I_ saved her, Aimée.” And so the wise one had lain awake and thought of all sorts of possible and impossible escapades. But as she was dressing herself this morning, the truth flashed upon her, though it was scarcely the whole truth.