er; and that was the day when she rocked her
arms joyously again. But it was not the furniture that made her so
happy; it was Corp's baby.

"Oh, oh!" she cried in rapture, and held out her arms; and he ran into
them, for there was still one person in Thrums who had no fear of
Grizel.

"It will be a damned shame," Corp said huskily, "if that woman never
has no bairns o' her ain."

They watched her crooning over the child, playing with him for a long
time. You could not have believed that she required to be watched. She
told him with hugs that she had come back to him at last; it was her
first admission that she knew she had been away and a wild hope came
to Tommy that along the road he could not take her she might be drawn
by this little child.

She discovered a rent in the child's pinafore and must mend it at
once. She ran upstairs, as a matter of course, to her work-box, and
brought down a needle and thread. It was quite as if she was at home
at last.

"But you don't live here now, Grizel," Tommy said, when she drew back
at his proposal that they should go away; "you live at the doctor's
house."

"Do I, Gavinia?" she said beseechingly.

"Is it here you want to bide?" Corp asked, and she nodded her head
several times.

"It would be so much more convenient," she said, looking at the child.

"Would you take her back, Gavinia," Tommy asked humbly, "if she
continues to want it?"

Gavinia did not answer.

"Woman!" cried Corp.

"I'm mortal wae for her," Gavinia said slowly, "but she needs to be
waited on hand and foot."

"I would come and do the waiting on her hand and foot, Gavinia," Tommy
said.

And so it came about that a week afterwards Grizel was reinstalled in
her old rooms. Every morning when Tommy came to see her she asked him,
icily how Alice was. She seemed to think that Alice, as she called
her, was his wife. He always replied, "You mean Elspeth," and she
assented, but only, it was obvious, because she feared to contradict
him. To Corp and Gavinia she would still say passionately, "I want to
go home!" and probably add fearfully, "Don't tell him."

Yet though this was not home to her, she seemed to be less unhappy
here than in the doctor's house, and she found a great deal to do. All
her old skill in needlework came back to her, and she sewed for the
child such exquisite garments that she clapped her hands over them.

One day Tommy came with a white face and asked Gavinia if she knew
whether