“Louise!  That sounds like baby’s name, and it makes my head ache to think of it,” Amy said sadly, going to the window, and looking out at the rain and fog, for the weather had not cleared.

It was a wet morning, and Howard, who liked his ease, shrugged his shoulders when Jack suggested that they should call upon Miss Smith.

“She ought to have her satchel and her hat,” Jack said, and Howard replied, “Oh, Amy sent Sarah off with a hat half an hour ago.  She would send all her wardrobe if she thought the girl wanted it, and, by George! why didn’t she send a pair of boots?  She has dozens of them, I dare say,” he continued, as he recalled the bits of leather they had cut from Eloise’s foot, and left on Mrs. Biggs’s floor.

Jack had spoken of her boots, and he readily acceded to Howard’s proposition to ask Amy if she had any cast-offs she thought would fit Miss Smith.  “They must wear about the same size, the girl is so slight,” Howard said as he went to Amy’s room, where he found her still standing by the window drumming upon the pane as if fingering a piano and humming softly to herself.  She never touched the grand instrument in the drawing-room, and when asked to do so and sing, she answered, “I can’t; I can’t.  It would bring it all back and shake up the bottle.  I hate the memory of it when I sang to the crowd and they applauded.  I hear them now; it is baby’s death knell.  I can never sing again as I did then.”

And yet she did sing often to herself, but so low that one could scarcely understand her words, except to know they were some negro melody sung evidently as a lullaby to a child.  As Howard came up to her he caught the words, “Mother’s lil baby,” and knew it was what she sometimes sang with the red cloak hugged to her bosom.

“Miss Amy,” he said, “I wonder if you haven’t a pair of half-worn boots for the young lady at Mrs. Biggs’s?  We had to cut one of hers off, her foot was so swollen.”

Amy was interested at once, and ordered Sarah, who had returned from Mrs. Biggs’s, to bring out all her boots and slippers, insisting that several pairs be sent for the girl to choose from.  Sarah suggested that slippers would be better than boots, as the young lady could not wear the latter in her present condition.

“Yes,” Amy said, selecting a pair of white satin slippers, with high French heels and fanciful rosettes.  “I wore them the night he told me baby was dead.  I’ve never had them on since.  I don’t want them.  Give them to her.  They are hateful to me.”

Amy was in a peculiar mood this morning, such as sometimes came upon her and made Peter say she was a chip of the old block, meaning the Colonel, who he never for a moment doubted was her father.  Sarah’s suggestion that white satin slippers would be out of place made no difference.  They must go.  She was more stubborn than usual, and Sarah accounted for it by saying in a low tone to Howard, “Certain spells of weather always affect her and send her back to a night when something dreadful must have happened.  Probably the baby she talks about died.  She’s thinking about it now.  Better take the slippers.  I’ve heard her talk of them before and threaten to burn them.”