possession the mother's tears fell hot on the baby's delicate gown
and tiny face, and from that hour Rachael loved her son with the
passionate and intense devotion she felt for his father.

Years later, looking at the pictures they took of him that summer,
or perhaps stopped by the sight of some white-coated baby in the
street, she would say to herself,--with that little heartache all
mothers know, "Ah, but Jim was the darling baby!" After the first
scare he bloomed like a rose, a splendid, square, royal boy who
laughed joyously when admitted to the company of his family and
friends, and lay contentedly dozing and smiling when it seemed
good to them to ignore him. Rachael found him the most
delightfully amusing and absorbing element her life had ever
known; she would break into ecstatic laughter at his simplest
feat--when he yawned, or pressed his little downy head against the
bars of his crib and stared unsmilingly at her. She would run to
the nursery the instant she arrived home, her eager, "How's my
boy?" making the baby crow, and struggle to reach her, and it was
an event to her to meet his coach in the park, and give him her
purse or parasol handle with which to play. Often old Mary, the
nurse, would see Mrs. Gregory pick up a pair of tiny white shoes
that still bore the imprint of the fat little feet, and touch them
to her lips, or catch a crumpled little linen coat from the
drawer, and bury her face in it for a moment.

Even in his tiny babyhood he was companionable to his mother,
Rachael even consenting to the plan of taking him to Home Dunes in
June, although by this arrangement she saw Warren only at week-end
intervals until the doctor's vacation came in August. When he came
down, and the big car honked at the gate, she invariably had the