No answer. Grace Winans' white arms wreathed themselves around her baby, pressing it closer, as if to still the sharp pang that struck home to her very heart. A faint shiver thrilled her, and rising, she laid the little sleeper in its downy nest, smiling a little sadly as she looked, but smiling still, for this tiny rosebud was the sweetest and most wonderful thing that had ever come into her lonely life. Deeply as she had loved the first object of her young affections, purely and truly as she loved her gifted husband, the strongest, deepest, most intense passion of her life was her maternal love. Some one has written half jestingly that "the depths of a woman's love can never be sounded till a baby is dropped into her heart," but it is true of the majority of women. It was especially true of Grace Winans. That little, rosy, lace-robed slumberer, small as it was, enshrining a human soul, was the idol of the young mother's life. Perhaps she was excusable. It was the only thing that had ever loved her purely and unselfishly. She could scarcely recollect her parents, she could not recall any one who had ever lavished on her such love as this child gave her, so devoted, so unreasoning, so absorbing; and deeply, unselfishly as she loved her husband, she loved his child better, though no word nor sign ever betrayed the fact to his jealous eyes. She reached up to him now, and drew him to her side, holding his arm about her waist with both dimpled white hands. "My darling," she whispered, "don't be so unreasonable. You have no _cause_ to be jealous, none at all. My whole heart is yours--yours and the baby's. You must have faith in me, Paul--have faith in me, and trust me as you do your own heart." Drawing his moody face down to hers she kissed him with child-like simplicity. At the persuasive touch of those tender lips his brow cleared, his listless clasp tightened around her, and both arms held her strained closely to his breast, his lips raining kisses on her brow, her cheeks, her lips, even her fair golden hair. "Now you are like yourself," the musical voice whispered gladly. "You will not be jealous and unhappy again. I am yours alone, dear one--heart, and soul, and body--your own loving, happy little wife." The sunshine on her face was tenderly reflected on his. She was so sweet and winsome, so womanly, yet withal so child-like and oh, _so_ beautiful! His strange, unusual mood was not proof against the witchery of her loveliness, her flowing hair, the subtle perfume breathing from her garments, the tenderness of her words and looks. "I don't think another man in the world has such a precious wife!" he said.