"I've thought of him a good deal lately," said Mrs. Chester; "more than I've done for a long time past. And my dreaming of him to-night is a good sign. Dick, I've got it into my head that he'll open the door one day, as handsome as ever, and rich too, and that he'll make it up to us----"
Mr. Chester interrupted her with a bitter laugh.
"If my head doesn't ache till then----There! Stop talking of him, and let's get to bed."
They went into the bedroom together, and Mrs. Chester held the candle over the sleeping children, turning the coverlid down, so that their faces could be seen. They were both fast asleep: the baby's head was lying on Sally's bare shoulder, and their lips almost touched.
It was not upon Sally's face that Mr. Chester's eyes rested. He gazed intently upon the child sleeping in Sally's arms, much as though he were striving to find the solution of some perplexing problem.
"What's bothering you, Dick?" asked Mrs. Chester.
"The difference between this new child and the man upstairs," he replied. "There's our Sally now. She's dark, and skinny, and queer-looking all round; but anybody can see with half an eye that she's our child. It's the same with Ned; he was about the handsomest lad that you could see in a mile's walk----"
"Ay, that he was, Dick," said the fond mother.
"--Not a bit like Sal, and not much like us to speak of, in a general way. And yet nobody could doubt that they were brother and sister, and that he was our boy. Nature works out these things in her own way. Very well, then. In what way has Nature worked out a likeness between this new baby and the man sleeping upstairs?"
"In no way that I can see," replied Mrs. Chester, receiving with favour this evidence against a man to whom she had taken a dislike at first sight.