"If you are like him," she muttered, "I will strangle you, I will! Ay, tremble — you ought to tremble when your mother touches you, or when he is mentioned. You have his eyes, you have. Out with them, out! — the devil sits laughing in them! Oh! you weep, do you, little one? Well now, be still, my love, — he hushed! I would not harm thee! harm — God, he is my child after all!" And at these words she clasped the boy passionate to her breast, and burst into tears.

"Come now, come," said Dummie, soothingly. "Take the stifler, Judith, and then we'll talk over the church."

The mother relaxed her grasp of the boy, and turning towards the speaker, gazed at him for some moments with a bewildered stare. At length she appeared slowly to remember him, and said,

"Yes, Dummie, it is true. This child has been given to me as a consolation, but he has the eyes of his father, and I cannot bear to look into them." 