little bald, wrinkled, dark-red, howling lump of
humanity all but made him ill. But soon the doctor came and knocked
at the door, and said:

"I congratulate you, old fellow, on having produced the most
magnificent little she I ever saw in my life--bar none; she might be
shown for money."

And it turned out that this was not the coarse, unfeeling chaff poor
Barty took it for at first, but the pure and simple truth.

So, my blessed Roberta, pride of your silly old godfather's heart
and apple of his eye, mother of Cupid and Ganymede and Aurora and
the infant Hercules, think of your poor young father weeping in
solitude at the first sight of you, because you were so hideous in
his eyes!

You were not so in mine. Next day--you had improved, no doubt--I
took you in my arms and thought well of you, especially your little
hands that were very prehensile, and your little feet turned in,
with rosy toes and little pink nails like shiny gems; and I was
complimented by Mrs. Jones on the skill with which I dandled you. I
have dandled your sons and daughters, Roberta, and may I live to
dandle theirs!

So then Barty dried his tears, if he really shed them--and he swears
he did--and went and sat by his wife's bedside, and felt
unutterably, as I believe all good men do under similar
circumstances; and lo!--proh!--to his wonderment and delight, in the
middle of it all, the sense of the north came back like a tide, like
an overwhelming avalanche. He declared he all but fainted in the
double ineffability of his bliss.

That night he arranged by his bedside writing materials chosen with
extra care, and before he went to bed he looked out of window at the
stars, and filled his lungs with the clean, frozen, virtuous air of
Bloomsbury, and whispered a most passionate invocation to Martia,
and implored her forgiveness, and went to sleep hugging the thought
of her to his manly breast, now widowed for quite a month to come.

Next morning there was a long letter in bold, vigorous Blaze:

"My more than ever beloved Barty,--It is for me to implore pardon,
not for _you_! Your first-born is proof enough to me how right you
were in letting your own instinct guide you in the choice of a wife.

"Ah! and well now I know her worth and your good-fortune. I have
inhabited her for many months, little as she knows it, dear thing!

"Although she was not the woman I first wanted for you, and had
watched so many years, she