"Please do," said Inza.
The nurse loosened the child's clothes and exposed the small, shapely shoulder. There, at the very base of the arm, was a small, perfectly formed pink, five-cornered star.
"I was right!" cried Hodge. "There's been a wonderful addition to the universe! A new star has risen!"
"It's a birthmark," said Frank.
"Oh, isn't it very strange!" breathed Elsie. "It gives me a superstitious feeling of awe. It seems to me that he is marked by fate to be something grand and wonderful."
"It was so good of you, Elsie, to come to me when I wanted you," breathed Inza. "And Hodge—he traveled so far."
"Oh, everything is coming as smoothly as possible at the mines," declared Bart. "There's a first-class foreman at both the Queen Mystery and the San Pablo. I could leave as well as not, and the old trains couldn't run fast enough to bring me here after I received the wire from Frank, saying that Elsie would be here. You bet I was glad to shake the alkali dust out of my clothes."
"You've done great things for me at the mines, Bart," said Merry. "Everything now seems to be going right for me everywhere in the world. The Central Sonora Railroad is practically completed, and the San Pablo is paying enormously. But these are not things to speak of on an occasion like this."
After a few minutes Bart and Elsie retired, the nurse took the baby, and Frank lingered a while longer at the side of his wife.
On returning to the library, Elsie stood at one of the large windows and looked out upon the grounds and across the broad road toward the handsome buildings of Farnham Hall. There was a strange expression of mingled happiness and regret on her fair face. Something like a mist filled her eyes.