w excellent he was!
and once or twice she laughed; so heartily, triumphantly, and
incoherently (still crying all the time), that Tilly was quite
horrified.

"Ow, if you please, don't!" said Tilly. "It's enough to dead and bury
the Baby, so it is if you please."

"Will you bring him sometimes to see his father, Tilly," inquired her
mistress, drying her eyes,--"when I can't live here, and have gone to my
old home?"

"Ow, if you please, don't!" cried Tilly, throwing back her head, and
bursting out into a howl--she looked at the moment uncommonly like
Boxer. "Ow, if you please, don't! Ow, what has everybody gone and been
and done with everybody, making everybody else so wretched? Ow-w-w-w!"

The soft-hearted Slowboy tailed off at this juncture into such a
deplorable howl, the more tremendous from its long suppression, that she
must infallibly have awakened the Baby, and frightened him into
something serious (probably convulsions), if her eyes had not
encountered Caleb Plummer leading in his daughter. This spectacle
restoring her to a sense of the proprieties, she stood for some few
moments silent, with her mouth wide open; and then, posting off to the
bed on which the Baby lay asleep, danced in a weird, St. Vitus manner on
the floor, and at the same time rummaged with her face and head among
the bedclothes, apparently deriving much relief from those extraordinary
operations.

"Mary!" said Bertha. "Not at the marriage!"

"I told her you would not be there, mum," whispered Caleb. "I heard as
much last night. But bless you," said the little man, taking her
tenderly by both hands, "_I_ don't care for what they say. _I_ don't
believe them. There an't much of me, but that little should be torn to
pieces sooner than I'd trust a word against you!"

He put his arms about her neck and hugged her, as a child might have
hugged one of his own dolls.

"Bertha couldn't stay at home this morning," said Caleb. "She was
afraid, I know, to hear the bells ring, and couldn't trust herself to be
so near them on their wedding-day. So we started in good time, and came
here. I have been thinking of what I have done," said Caleb after a
moment's pause; "I have been blaming myself till I hardly knew what to
do, or where to turn, for the distress of mind I have caused her; and
I've come to the conclusion that I'd better, if you'll stay with me,
mum, the while, tell her the truth. You'll stay with me the while?" he
inquired, trembling from h