part with
it for two of the best cows in his cow-house. This'll floor him, I'm
thinking. What's that you're saying, Mistress Nancy, ma'am? No good for
nothing, am I? You were right, Grannie. 'It'll be all joy soon,' you
were saying, and haven't we the child to show for it? I put on my
stocking inside out on Monday, ma'am. 'I'm in luck,' says I, and so I
was. Look at that, now! He's shaking his lil fist at his father. He is,
though. This child knows me. Aw, you're clever, Nancy, but--no nonsense
at all, Mistress Nancy, ma'am. Nothing will persuade me but this child
knows me."

"Do you hear the man?" said Nancy. "_He_ and _he_, and _he_ and _he_!
It's a girl, I'm telling you; a girl--a girl--a girl."

"Well, well, a girl, then--a girl we'll make it," said Pete, with
determined resignation.

"He's deceaved," said Grannie. "It was a boy he was wanting, poor
fellow!"

But Pete scoffed at the idea. "A boy? Never! No, no--a girl for your
life. I'm all for girls myself, eh, Kitty? Always was, and now I've got
two of them."

The child began to cry, and Grannie took it back and rocked it, face
downwards, across her knees.

"Goodness me, the voice at him!" said Pete. "It's a skipper he's born
for--a harbor-master, anyway."

The child slept, and Grannie put it on the pillow turned lengthwise at
Kate's side.

"Quiet as a Jenny Wren, now," said Pete. "Look at the bogh smiling
in his sleep. Just like a baby mermaid on the egg of a dogfish. But
where's the ould man at all? Has he seen it? We must have it in the
papers. The Times? Yes, and the 'Tiser too. 'The beloved wife of Mr.
Capt'n Peter Quilliam, of a boy--a girl,' I mane. Aw, the wonder
there'll be all the island over--everybody getting to know. Newspapers
are like women--ter'ble bad for keeping sacrets. What'll Philip say?"...

There was a low moaning from the bed.

"Air! Give me air! open the door!" Kate gasped.

"The room is getting too hot for her," said Grannie.

"Come, there's one too many of us here," said Nancy. "Out of it," and
she swept Pete from the bedroom with her apron as if he had been a drove
of ducks.

Pete glanced backward from the door, and a cloak that was hanging on the
inside of it brushed his face.

"God bless her!" he said in a low tone. "God bless and reward her for
going through this for me!"

Then he touched the cloak with his lips and disappeared. A moment later
his curly black poll came stealing round the door-jamb, half-way down