ordered his coat, as the servant came in to remove the tea things, and took
up his gloves from the table. The very consciousness of being in the wrong
prevented an acknowledgment, even by an act so simple as giving up one
evening's engagement.

"And here she comes!" he said, as the nurse drew the cradle from an
adjoining room, so lightly that the little creature did not move or stir in
her sweet sleep. And when his wife threw back the light covering, and said,
"_Isn't she beautiful_, Willis?" as only a young mother could say it, it
must be confessed that he thought himself a very fortunate man to have two
such treasures, and he could not help saying so.

"I love to have the little thing where I can watch her myself; so, when
there is no one in, nurse spares her to me, and we sit here as cosily as
possible. I could watch her for hours. Sometimes she does not move, and
then she will smile so sweetly in her sleep--and only look at those dear
little dimpled hands, Willis!"

And yet Willis took the coat when it came, though with a guilty feeling at
heart. The greater the self-reproach, the more the pride that arose to
combat it; and he drew on his gloves resolutely.

"Don't sit up for me," he said, as he had said a hundred times before; and
in a moment the hall door shut with a clang, as he passed into the street.
Catherine echoed the sound with a half sigh. The morning's conversation
rose to her recollection, and she had hoped, she scarce knew why, that
Willis would remain with her that evening. But she checked the regretful
reverie, and took up the pretty little sock she was knitting for Gertrude,
and soon became engrossed in counting and all the after mysteries of this
truly feminine employment.