On a sudden, Anna decided to go to evening service. She had kissed the baby in his sleep and almost thought he smiled, and as she flew over the frozen ground, her heart grew light again. Her own words came back to her. “The baby loves me best.” They echoed in her heart and she almost danced along to their melody. He loved her best and therefore he belonged to her as he could belong to no other. For, after all, there was nothing like love. Advantages and all sorts of material goods couldn’t compete with it. She was going to keep Joe, Junior, always. CHAPTER XVII Anna Miller went forth exultantly, hugging the certainty to her heart that Joe, Junior, loved her best and that she had, therefore, a right to keep him to grow up in an household wherein everyone loved and wanted him. But all her elation died out at the sight of Mr. Langley’s face as it looked down from the pulpit. He looked as he had never looked before, and the girl knew only too well that it was all because of the baby’s visit to the parsonage yesterday. He looked weary--at once wistfully and radiantly weary. He looked as if he had been through floods and stood on mountain summits. He looked, poor dear, as if he ought to have a darling, cuddling, prattling baby at the parsonage all the time. So the question was unsettled again and settled the other way, though Anna lay awake for hours that night before she announced the painful decision formally to herself. And even then she did not dare trust herself until she had burned all her bridges behind her. She hastened over to the parsonage late Monday afternoon. At the door, Big Bell enquired eagerly though shyly for the blessed baby. When Anna told her of his feats with the picture book, Bell laughed and choked and got out of the way quickly to conceal her tears. Anna’s eyes were moist as she entered Mrs. Langley’s room. “O Mrs. Langley, what do you think now?” she cried, and proceeded to relate the story of the pictures at greater length. And as she told it, she and Mrs. Langley laughed and cried together in new intimacy. “Why didn’t you bring him with you?” Mrs. Langley asked wistfully. And the girl’s heart sank to feel how fatally easy it was to be to give away the baby. She spoke very low in order to keep her voice steady. “Because--O, Mrs. Langley, I don’t think we’ll keep little Joe. We all love him--even ma, but we don’t really need him and--don’t you know someone who would like a baby boy that talks?”