Seating herself before the fire, she laid aside the shawl and
straightened out the baby's mussed garments. They were clothes of the
plainest, but spotlessly clean.

Parson Dan stood watching his wife with much interest. This little
waif of the night appealed to him in a remarkable manner.

"Who do you suppose left it here?" he at last asked. "It is no child
of this parish, I feel quite sure of that."

"Perhaps it was an angel who did it," Mrs. Royal replied. "It may be
that the good Lord has taken compassion upon our loneliness since we
lost Alec and has given us this in his stead."

"No, I cannot believe that, Martha. I do not for a moment doubt that
such a thing is possible, oh, no. But that old shawl and those plain
clothes do not look much like heavenly robes, do they? I think that
the hands which made that little white dress were human hands such as
ours, and the sob which I heard to-night was not the sob of an angel
but of a heart-broken mother."

"Well, she is the angel, then, whoever she is," Mrs. Royal insisted,
"and perhaps she will come for the baby to-morrow."

"Oh, do you think so, Martha?" and there was a note of anxiety in the
parson's voice. "How nice it would be to keep it."

"Why do you say 'it,' Daniel? Why don't you say 'her'?"

"I never knew before that it was a 'her,'" and the parson chuckled as