Rachel got up suddenly. "You haven't seen my baby yet," she said.

"So we haven't," Gilbert exclaimed. "Where is it?"

"She's upstairs asleep. You must come quietly!..."

"It's a girl, then?" said Henry.

Rachel nodded, and led the way upstairs to the bedroom where the baby lay in her cot.

"Isn't she a darling?" she said, bending over the child.

They did not answer, afraid, as men are in the presence of a sleeping child, that they might disturb her; and while they stood looking at the cot, Rachel bent closer to her baby, and lightly kissed her cheek.

They moved away on tiptoe.

"What do you call her?" Henry whispered to Roger, as they left the bedroom.

"Eleanor," he answered. "That was my mother's name. Jolly little kid, isn't she?"

Gilbert turned and went back to the bedroom. Rachel was still bending over the baby, and she looked up at him warningly. He went up to the cot and, leaning towards Rachel, whispered, "Do you mind if I kiss her, too, Rachel? I'm going to enlist to-morrow, and perhaps I won't get so good a chance as this!..."

She stood up quickly and put her arms round him. "Oh, Gilbert!" she said, and then she drew him down, so that he could kiss the baby easily.