Babcock, on his part, was transported by paternity.  He was bubbling over with appreciation of the new baby, and fondly believed it to be a human wonder.  He was solicitous on the score of its infantile ailments, and loaded it with gifts and toys beyond the scope of its enjoyment.  He went about the house whistling more exuberantly than ever.  There was no speck on his horizon; no fly in his pot of ointment.  It was he who urged that the child should be christened promptly, though Dr. Glynn was not disposed to dwell on the clerical barbarism as to the destiny of unbaptized infants.  Babcock was cultivating a conservative method:  He realized that there was no object in taking chances.  Illogical as was the theory that a healthy dog which had bitten him should be killed at once, lest it subsequently go mad and he contract hydrophobia, he was too happy and complacent to run the risk of letting it live.  So it was with regard to baby.  But Selma chose the name.  Babcock preferred in this order another Selma, Sophia, after his mother, or a compliment to the wife of the President of the United States.  But Selma, as the result of grave thought, selected Muriel Grace.  Without knowing exactly why, she asked Mrs. Taylor to be godmother.  The ceremony was solemn and inspiring to her.  She knew from the glass in her room that she was looking very pretty.  But she was weak and emotional.  The baby behaved admirably, even when Lewis, trembling with pride, held it out to Mr. Glynn for baptism and held it so that the blood rushed to its head.  “I baptize thee in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.”  She was happy and the tears were in her eyes.  The divine blessing was upon her and her house, and, after all, baby was a darling and her husband a kind, manly soul.  With the help of heaven she would prove herself their good angel.

When they returned home there was a whistle of old silver of light, graceful design, a present from Mrs. Taylor to Muriel.  Her aunt, Mrs. Farley, compared this to its disparagement with one already purchased by Lewis, on the gaudily embossed stem of which perched a squirrel with a nut in its mouth.  But Selma shook her head.  “Both of you are wrong,” she said with authority.  “This is a beauty.”

“It doesn’t look new to my eyes,” protested Mrs. Parley.

“Of course it isn’t new.  I shouldn’t wonder if she bought it while travelling abroad in Europe.  It’s artistic, and—­and I shan’t let baby destroy it.”

Babcock glanced from one gift to the other quizzically.  Then by way of disposing of the subject he seized his daughter in his arms and dandling her toward the ceiling cried, “If it’s artistic things we must have, this is the most artistic thing which I know of in the wide world.  Aren’t you, little sugar-plum?”

Mrs. Farley, with motherly distrust of man, apprehensively followed with her eyes and arms the gyrations of rise and fall; but Selma, though she saw, pursued the current of her own thought which prompted her to examine her wedding-ring.  She was thinking that, compared with Mrs. Taylor’s, it was a cart wheel—­a clumsy, conspicuous band of metal, instead of a delicate hoop.  She wondered if Lewis would object to exchange it for another.