carry on a conversation with him, and to avoid the necessity for any
talk at all, I extended myself on the sofa and averted my face,
wondering once again why I had accompanied the doctor to Toft End. The
doctor was now in another, an inaccessible world. I dozed, and from my
doze I was roused by Jos Myatt going to the door on the stairs.

"Jos," said a voice. "It's a girl."

Then a silence.

I admit there was a flutter in my heart. Another soul, another formed
and unchangeable temperament, tumbled into the world! Whence?
Whither?... As for the quality of majesty--yes, if silver trumpets had
announced the advent, instead of a stout, aproned woman, the moment
could not have been more majestic in its sadness. I say "sadness," which
is the inevitable and sole effect of these eternal and banal questions,
"Whence? Whither?"

"Is her bad?" Jos whispered.

"Her's pretty bad," said the voice, but cheerily. "Bring me up another
scuttle o' coal."

When he returned to the parlour, after being again dismissed, I said to
him:

"Well, I congratulate you."

"I thank ye!" he said, and sat down. Presently I could hear him
muttering to himself, mildly: "Hell! Hell! Hell!"