der than May. But that
don't signify."

"Oh, father, yes! To be his patient companion in infirmity and age; to
be his gentle nurse in sickness, and his constant friend in suffering
and sorrow; to know no weariness in working for his sake; to watch him,
tend him, sit beside his bed and talk to him awake, and pray for him
asleep; what privileges these would be! What opportunities for proving
all her truth and her devotion to him! Would she do all this, dear
father?"

"No doubt of it," said Caleb.

"I love her, father; I can love her from my soul!" exclaimed the Blind
Girl. And, saying so, she laid her poor blind face on Caleb's shoulder,
and so wept and wept, that he was almost sorry to have brought that
tearful happiness upon her.

In the meantime there had been a pretty sharp commotion at John
Peerybingle's, for little Mrs. Peerybingle naturally couldn't think of
going anywhere without the Baby; and to get the Baby under way took
time. Not that there was much of the Baby, speaking of it as a thing of
weight and measure, but there was a vast deal to do about and about it,
and it all had to be done by easy stages. For instance, when the Baby
was got, by hook and by crook, to a certain point of dressing, and you
might have rationally supposed that another touch or two would finish
him off, and turn him out a tiptop Baby challenging the world, he was
unexpectedly extinguished in a flannel cap, and hustled off to bed;
where he simmered (so to speak) between two blankets for the best part
of an hour. From this state of inaction he was then recalled, shining
very much and roaring violently, to partake of--well? I would rather
say, if you'll permit me to speak generally--of a slight repast. After
which he went to sleep again. Mrs. Peerybingle took advantage of this
interval, to make herself as smart in a small way as ever you saw
anybody in all your life; and, during the same short truce, Miss Slowboy
insinuated herself into a spencer of a fashion so surprising and
ingenious, that it had no connection with herself, or anything else in
the universe, but was a shrunken, dog's-eared, independent fact,
pursuing its lonely course without the least regard to anybody. By this
time, the Baby, being all alive again, was invested, by the united
efforts of Mrs. Peerybingle and Miss Slowboy, with a cream-coloured
mantle for its body, and a sort of nankeen raised pie for its head; and
so, in course of time, they all three got down to t