The nurse led the way into the house. Presently, after disappearing for a minute into Mollie’s room, she returned for Hugh. He trod softly, as men do in the presence of sickness or some mystery of life or death that awes them.
Mollie had never looked lovelier. A faint pink of apple blossoms fluttered into her cheeks. In the crook of her arm lay Alexander Hugh McClintock, a red and wrinkled little morsel of humanity. She smiled with such a radiance of motherhood that the man’s bachelor heart registered a pang of envy.
“Oh, Hugh, I’m so happy,” she whispered as he kissed her.
“That’s fine—fine,” he said gently.
“We named him after your father and you. Scot would have it, wouldn’t he, Vicky?”
The dark young woman nodded.
Hugh felt the flush dyeing his face. “Little Vicky!” he stammered. “Why, I thought——”
“Thank you for the dolls, kind sir,” she said, and curtsied.
He felt like a fool. How long was it since he had sent her a black doll baby?
“I thought you were still a little girl,” he blurted. “Nobody told me——”