"Not for your wife," hastily rejoined the surgeon--"what good should a clergyman do to her? I spoke on the score of the child. Should it not live, it may be satisfactory to you and Lady Isabel to know that it was baptized."

"I thank you--I thank you," said Mr. Carlyle grasping his hand, in his inexpressible relief. "Little shall be sent for."

"You jumped to the conclusion that your wife's soul was flitting. Please God, she may yet live to bear you other children, if this one does die."

"Please God!" was the inward aspiration of Mr. Carlyle.

"Carlyle," added the surgeon, in a musing sort of tone, as he laid his hand on Mr. Carlyle's shoulder, which his own head scarcely reached, "I am sometimes at death-beds where the clergyman is sent for in this desperate need to the fleeting spirit, and I am tempted to ask myself what good another man, priest though he be, can do at the twelfth hour, where accounts have not been made up previously?"

It was hard upon midday. The Rev. Mr. Little, Mr. Carlyle, and Miss Carlyle were gathered in the dressing-room, round a table, on which stood a rich china bowl, containing water for the baptism. Joyce, her pale face working with emotion, came into the room, carrying what looked like a bundle of flannel. Little cared Mr. Carlyle for the bundle, in comparison with his care for his wife.

"Joyce," he whispered, "is it well still?"

The services commenced. The clergyman took the child. "What name?" he asked.

(Editor：art)