at the further end of the
house), when she was a little better of grievous pain and misery (for
being so upset her time was hard), when she sat up on the pillow,
looking like a bride almost, except that she had what brides hasn't--a
little red thing in white flannel at her side--then she says to me, 'I
am ready, Betsy; it is high time for all of them to see their little
sister. They always love the baby so, whenever there is a new one. And
they are such men and women to it. They have been so good this time
that I have never heard them once. And I am sure that I can trust them,
Betsy, not to make the baby cry. I do so long to see the darlings. Now
do not even whisper to them not to make a noise. They are too good to
require it; and it would hurt their little feelings.'

"I had better have been shot, my dear, according as the old lord was,
than have the pain that went through all my heart, to see the mother so.
She sat up, leaning on one arm, with the hand of the other round your
little head, and her beautiful hair was come out of its loops, and the
color in her cheeks was like a shell. Past the fringe of the curtain,
and behind it too, her soft bright eyes were a-looking here and there
for the first to come in of her children. The Lord only knows what lies
I told her, so as to be satisfied without them. First I said they were
all gone for a walk; and then that the doctor had ordered them away; and
then that they had got the measles. That last she believed, because it
was worse than what I had said before of them; and she begged to see Dr.
Diggory about it, and I promised that she should as soon as he had done
his dinner. And then, with a little sigh, being very weak, she went down
into her nest again, with only you to keep her company.

"Well, that was bad enough, as any mortal sufferer might have said;
enough for one day at any rate. But there was almost worse to come. For
when I was having a little sit down stairs, with my supper and half pint
of ale (that comes like drawing a long breath to us when spared out of
sickrooms, miss), and having no nursery now on my mind, was thinking of
all the sad business, with only a little girl in the back kitchen come
in to muck up the dishes, there appeared a good knock at the garden
door, and I knew it for the thumb of the Captain. I locked the young
girl up, by knowing what their tongues are, and then I let your father
in, and the candle-sight of him made my heart go low.

"He h