I am desperate. I can’t bear it! I can’t! We have just been told that our precious Robin must undergo an operation. Didn’t we have enough to endure without this? Geoffrey so ill,—not past the crisis yet,—and now Bobsie, my own baby, whom I love better than anything in all the world!

God is cruel!... Oh, I don’t know what I am writing! I must calm myself.

This afternoon, after hearing about Robin and trying to write, and giving it up, I put on my hat and jacket and escaped alone to the Park. I walked fast, and just at first I did not notice anything,—the bare branches of the trees against the early sunset sky, the patches of melting snow about the rhododendron bushes, the children playing with their nurses on the common,—till one little fellow with rosy cheeks and shining eyes came running, laughing and shouting over his shoulder, and stumbled against me. “’S’cuse me!” he piped, and shied off again.

It was like a knife in my heart! I wondered stupidly why it should hurt so, and sat down on a bench to think;—and then I knew it was because Robin had never run like that. Oh, he has missed so much in his little life!

I remember perfectly Bobsie’s first birthday. How I woke with a start, before it was yet light, and saw the morning star, big and beautiful, shining in at my window. I sat up in bed, and clasped my knees and blinked at it,—conscious of an unusual stir in the house. Till all at once there rose a little cry! How my heart beat. I jumped out of bed, slipped on my dressing gown and slippers, and crept down the stairs to mother’s door, where I crouched against the wall and listened.

A few moments later the door opened, and Mrs. Parsons, the nurse, poked her head out. “Bless my soul,” she said, “I almost thought you was a ghost, my dear. Run down to the library like a good girl, and tell your pa that everything is all right. It is a fine little boy and your mamma is doing nicely.”

“Oh, nurse,” I breathed, “might I see the baby first?”

“To be sure, you might,” answered Mrs. Parsons. And she went back into the room and returned again with a little white flannel bundle which she laid in my arms.

And I put back a corner of the blanket and peeped in, and there was Robin smiling up at me! His eyes were big and dark, just as they are to-day, and he blinked them. Everybody says it is impossible that Robin should have smiled; but I saw him, and I know. So the next morning, I put away my dolls, and never played with them again. It would have been too stupid, with a real baby to mother, and dress, and sing to.

“She’s crying!” chirped a little voice. For I was thinking of these things as I sat on the bench in the Park; and sure enough the tears were on my face, and I looked up to find three chubby tots standing hand in hand before me, staring in a solemn row.

So then I got up and came home again, since I did not care to make a public spectacle of myself;—and mother met me on the doorstep with outstretched hands, and her own brave smile.

“My darling,” she said, “I meant to spare you; but I am afraid it has come as too much of a shock. Come into the parlour. We will have a cup of cocoa.”

And when I was tucked snugly on the lounge and had wept my little weep where no one could see,—we talked it all out together. What comfortable institutions mothers are!

It seems that if Robin does not have the operation now he can never have it. A few months later would be too late. And though Dr. Porter had hoped to obviate the necessity by a long rest in bed, everything else has failed. There remains this one chance.

“So we must be brave for our baby, Elizabeth,” explained mother. “He is too young to make the decision for himself. The doctor spoke to me of the matter first before Christmas. I would not tell you then, dear, since there seemed a chance of escape, and we had worries enough without adding anything else. But that was why I was so determined not to draw from our little stock of money. You helped me there. Think how thankful we should be that we do not have to borrow, that we can engage a nurse for Robin,—everything that is necessary. He need not even be moved to a hospital, Dr. Porter says. It will all be over in a couple of weeks, and whatever the result there will be the inexpressible comfort of knowing that everything possible has been tried. Are you satisfied? Do you blame me?”

“No, no, indeed!” I answered. “Only,—I think I hate the doctor!”

“Oh, Elizabeth!” smiled mother, as she took my empty cocoa-cup and put it upon the table. “And now I want you to run up to your room, bathe your face, and put on a pretty frock. Mrs. Burroughs has sent over a charming mould of orange jelly and some lady-fingers for Robin. There is to be a tea-party in the nursery, and you and Abraham Lincoln are invited. What do you think of that?”

It was one of mother’s dear, considerate schemes to save my tell-tale eyes from a downstairs dinner. So I kissed her, sped up to my room, dabbed a little powder on the tip of my nose, and donned my forget-me-not dress. Robin’s invitation should be honoured with the best I had.

How his black eyes danced when I entered to him in all my finery:—

“Allow me the Honour of Presenting my Friend, Mr. Abraham Lincoln,” he piped. “There’s the globe, Elizabeth, on the side of the bed. You must pertend to shake hands, and p’raps we can get him to eat a little lady-finger.”

So I pretended to shake hands with the much-enduring Abraham Lincoln, and tempted him with lady-fingers and orange jelly, both of which delicacies he obstinately refused.

“Never mind,” says Robin. “He doesn’t know what’s good. We will eat instead.”

Such a jolly party as it was! We told stories, guessed riddles, and ran races to see who could dispose of the most sandwiches; till even the kind “Hippopotamus” could not have complained of Robin’s appetite. But, at last, he grew tired, and the weary pain returned:

“Take away the party, please, and sing to me, Ellie dear,” he said.

So I carried the tray outside, and came back and sat down by the bed, and with Robin’s thin little hand in mine, sang to him,—all the dear, familiar “heaven hymns” that we have both come to love so well. And Bobsie cuddled up against my arm and closed his eyes and sighed.

And then somehow I knew that if he is not to grow up strong and straight like other boys, if he is to suffer more and more as the years go by, it would be cruel to want to keep Robin. And, oh, I went on singing, and my voice did not once break or trail! So perhaps God will forgive the wicked words I wrote when I was so wild,—for I believe I can be brave now because after a bit Bobsie dropped asleep with his hand still in mine, and—I think, before I left him, that I said “good-bye.”