"Mamma," he said, "I am going over to Roselands and should like to take you along. You have not seen that youngest Conly yet, and Arthur considers Marian now quite well enough for a call from you. I know, too, that she is wanting to see you."

"And I to see her, the dear girl," responded his mother, laying aside her work. "Come in and sit down while I don my bonnet and mantle."

"Let me get them out for you, mamma," said Rosie, dropping her embroidery and hastening to do so.

"I should include you in the invitation, Rosie," said Harold, "but we think it safer not to let Marian have the excitement of many callers until she gains more strength."

"I thought she was doing finely," returned Rosie, bringing her mother's mantle and putting it about her with loving care.

"So she is," replied Harold with a light laugh; "but we cannot be too careful of her to satisfy her doting husband, and though eager to exhibit her new treasure to all her friends and relatives, she is entirely submissive to his will in the matter."

"Oh, well, I can wait," laughed Rosie. "Give her my love, mamma, and tell her I am not staying away from any indifference to her or the little newcomer."

"No fear that she would ever suspect you of that, Rosie dear," her mother said, with a slight smile; "but I will a.s.sure her of your interest in both herself and baby boy. Now good-bye till my return, which I presume will be in the course of an hour or two."

"Don't hurry home on my account, mamma dear," returned Rosie. "I shall not be lonely. I have letters to write, and that will make the time pa.s.s quickly."

"It is a lovely day and the short drive with my son will be very enjoyable," Mrs. Travilla remarked, as Harold handed her into the vehicle.

"To us both, I hope, mother," he returned, giving her an affectionate look and smile. "Yours is to me the best company in the world. The roads are in fine condition," he added as he took up the reins and they started down the avenue, "the fields and gardens along the way also, and the air full of the fragrance of flower and shrub. Oh, on such a morning as this it seems a joy just to be alive and well!"

"Yes," she responded, "oh, what cause for grat.i.tude to the Giver of all good that you and I, and all our nearest and dearest in this world, are alive and well."

"Yes, mother; attendance upon the sick and suffering has given me a higher appreciation of the greatness of the blessing of sound health than I had in earlier days. It is saddening to witness suffering from accident and disease, but a great privilege to be able in many cases to relieve it. That last makes me thankful that I was led to choose the medical profession."

"And you have often an opportunity to minister to souls as well as bodies; one which I hope you do not neglect."

"I am afraid I have sometimes neglected it, mother," he acknowledged with a sigh, "and at others performed it in a very halting and imperfect way. But as you know--for I could not keep from you such gladness as the knowledge of that fact brought me--I have been privileged to win some souls to Christ--smooth some dying pillows--and to lead some recovering ones to devote their spared lives and restored health to the service of the Master--the Physician of souls--in whose footsteps I ardently desire to tread."

"I know it, my dear son, and it has filled me with joy and grat.i.tude for you, for them, and for myself--that I am the mother of one whom G.o.d has so honoured and blessed."

Then she inquired about the condition and needs of some of his poorer patients; for she made it her business to provide for their necessities and to furnish many a little luxury that helped on convalescence or smoothed the pa.s.sage to the grave.

As they drove up the avenue at Roselands Dr. Conly came out upon the veranda, his face beaming with smiles.

"Ah, Cousin Elsie," he said as he a.s.sisted her to alight, "this is kind.

Marian has been looking forward to your visit with longing, both to see you and to exhibit to your appreciative eyes the little one who seems to her the greatest and loveliest darling the world ever saw."

"Ah, I can understand that," she returned with a low, pleased laugh. "I have not forgotten how lovely and what an inestimable treasure my first baby seemed to me; though I am by no means sure that each one who followed was not an equal joy and delight."

"Your second son among the rest, I hope, mother," laughed Harold.

She gave him a loving smile in response.

"Will you go up with us, Harold?" asked Arthur.

"No, thank you," he said. "I will busy myself here with the morning paper while mother makes her little call."

It was a most inviting looking apartment into which the doctor conducted his cousin, tastefully furnished and redolent of the breath of flowers; in pretty vases set here and there on bureau, mantel, and table, and blooming in the garden beneath the open windows whence the soft, warm air came stealing in through the lace curtains. But the chief ornaments of the room were its living occupants--the young mother lying amid her snowy pillows and the little one sleeping in its dainty crib close at her side.

"Dear Cousin Elsie, you have come at last, and I am, oh, so glad to see you!" Marian exclaimed with a look of eager delight, and holding out her hand in joyous welcome. "I have hardly known how to wait to show you our treasure and receive your congratulations."

"Dear girl, I can quite understand that," Mrs. Travilla said with a smile and a tender caress, "and I wanted to come sooner; should have done so had your good husband deemed it entirely safe for you."

"Ah, he is very careful of me," returned Marian, giving him a glance of ardent affection. "But, oh, look at our darling! His father and mother think him the sweetest creature that ever was made," she added with a happy laugh, laying a hand on the edge of the crib and gazing with eyes full of mother love at the tiny pink face nestling among the pillows there.

Elsie bent over it too in tender motherly fashion.

"He is a dear little fellow," she said softly. "I congratulate you both on this good gift from our Heavenly Father, and wish for you that he may grow up into a G.o.d-fearing man, a blessing to his parents, to the Church and the world."

"I hope he may indeed, cousin, and I want you to join your prayers to ours that we may have grace and wisdom to train him up aright, should it please the Lord to spare him to us," said the doctor with emotion.

"I think his mother needs those prayers the most," said Marian low and softly. "I am but a foolish young thing; scarcely fit for so great a responsibility; but I am more glad and thankful than words can tell that the darling has a good, wise, Christian father to both train him and set him a good example."

"It is a cause for great thankfulness," Elsie said, "but never forget, dear girl, how very great and important is a mother's influence; especially in the early years when the strongest and most lasting impressions are apt to be made. No doubt you feel--as I often have, often do--like crying out in the midst of it all, 'Alas, who is sufficient for these things!' but what a blessing, what a comfort is the promise, 'If any of you lack wisdom let him ask of G.o.d that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.'"

"Oh, those are comforting texts!" Marian said with a look of relief. "I wish I were as well acquainted with the Bible as you are, cousin."

"I know more of it now than I did at your age," Elsie returned in a rea.s.suring tone, "and you, as well as I, have it at hand to turn to in every perplexity; and if you do so you will find the truth of the words of the Psalmist, 'Thy word is a lamp to my feet and a light unto my path.'"

"Ah, yes! an open Bible is an inestimable blessing," said Arthur, "and my Marian and I will endeavour to make it the rule of our life, the man of our counsel."

At that moment the babe stirred and opened its eyes.

"Ah, he is awake, the darling!" said Marian. "Don't you want to take him up, papa, and let Cousin Elsie have a better look at him?"

"Yes, mamma; as you know, I am very proud to exhibit my son and heir,"

laughed the doctor, bending over the crib, gently lifting the babe and placing it in Elsie's arms, smilingly outstretched to receive it.

"He is indeed a lovely little darling," she said, gazing on it with admiring eyes, then softly pressing her lips to the velvet cheek. "There is nothing sweeter to me than a little helpless babe. I hope he may live to grow up if the will of G.o.d be so, and I think he is going to resemble his father," she added with a most affectionate look up into the doctor's face.

"If he equals his father in all respects, his mother will be fully satisfied," Marian said with a happy little laugh.

"Ah, love is blind, dearest," was Arthur's smiling response.

"And well for me that it is in your case, as I have often thought," she said in sportive tone, "for it seems to hide all my imperfections and show you virtues that are wholly imaginary."

"Then it is a very good and desirable kind of blindness, I think,"

remarked Grandma Elsie with her pleasant smile.

"Now, Cousin Elsie, please tell me about Rosie," Marian requested with a look of keen interest. "I suppose she is both very busy and very happy."

"Quite busy and happy too, I think, except when her thoughts turn upon the approaching separation--partial at least--from home and its loved ones."

"And doubtless that thought makes you sad too, cousin," sighed Marian.

"Ah, what a world of partings it is! and how sudden and unexpected many of them are."

"Yes; but there are none in that happy land to which we are journeying.