father, would be seriously disgusted, she knew, if she gave him a
daughter.

"A--a girl?" Clara stammered, her wet eyes on the doctor's face,
her panting little figure lost in the big outline of her mother's
spare-room bed. She managed a brave smile, but there was a bitter
lump in her throat.

A girl!

And she had been so brave, so sweet with Jerry, who had not
enjoyed the three or four days of waiting at her mother's house;
so strong in her agonies, as became the healthy, normal little
country girl she was! Fate owed her a son, she had done her share,
she had not flinched. And now--a girl! Fresh tears of
disappointment came to take the place of tears of pain in her
eyes. She remembered that Jerry had said, a few days before,
"It'll be a boy, of course--all the old women about seem to have
settled that--and I believe I'll cable Cousin Harold."

"Ma says it'll be a boy," Clara had submitted hopefully, longing
to hear more of "Cousin Harold," to whom Gerald alluded at long
intervals.

"Of course it will--good old girl!" Jerry had agreed. And that was
only Thursday night, and this was in the late dawn of cold, wintry
Saturday morning.

Her mother bent over her and kissed her wet forehead. Mrs.
Mumford's big kind face was radiant; she had already four small