n Rokesmith!

'Would you not like to be rich NOW, my darling?'

'How can you ask me such a question, John dear? Am I not rich?'

These were among the first words spoken near the baby Bella as she lay
asleep. She soon proved to be a baby of wonderful intelligence,
evincing the strongest objection to her grandmother's society, and
being invariably seized with a painful acidity of the stomach when that
dignified lady honoured her with any attention.

It was charming to see Bella contemplating this baby, and finding out
her own dimples in that tiny reflection, as if she were looking in the
glass without personal vanity. Her cherubic father justly remarked
to her husband that the baby seemed to make her younger than before,
reminding him of the days when she had a pet doll and used to talk to it
as she carried it about. The world might have been challenged to produce
another baby who had such a store of pleasant nonsense said and sung
to it, as Bella said and sung to this baby; or who was dressed and
undressed as often in four-and-twenty hours as Bella dressed and
undressed this baby; or who was held behind doors and poked out to stop
its father's way when he came home, as this baby was; or, in a word, who
did half the number of baby things, through the lively invention of a
gay and proud young mother, that this inexhaustible baby did.

The inexhaustible baby was two or three months old, when Bella began to
notice a cloud upon her husband's brow. Watching it, she saw a gathering
and deepening anxiety there, which caused her great disquiet. More than
once, she awoke him muttering in his sleep; and, though he muttered
nothing worse than her own name, it was plain to her that his
restlessness originated in some load of care. Therefore, Bella at length
put in her claim to divide this load, and hear her half of it.

'You know, John dear,' she said, cheerily reverting to their former
conversation, 'that I hope I may safely be trusted in great things. And
it surely cannot be a little thing that causes you so much uneasiness.
It's very considerate of you to try to hide from me that you are
uncomfortable about something, but it's quite impossible to be done,
John love.'

'I admit that I am rather uneasy, my own.'

'Then please to tell me what about, sir.'

But no, he evaded that. 'Never mind!' thought Bella, resolutely.
'John requires me to put perfect faith in him, and he shall not be
disappointed.'

She went up to Londo