She thrust the covering aside and the two heads--one golden and one
brown--pressed closer together that they might the better behold the
infant charms which were such joy to them.

"I would not let them bind his little limbs and head as is their way,"
she said. "From the first hour I spoke with his chief nurse, I gave her
my command that he should be left free to grow and to kick his pretty
legs as soon as he was strong enough. See, John, he stirs them a little
now. They say he is of wondrous size and long and finely made, and
indeed he seems so to me--and 'tis not only because I am so proud, is
it?"

"I know but little of their looks when they are so young, sweet," her
lord answered, his voice and eyes as tender as her own; for in sooth he
felt himself moved as he had been at no other hour in his life before,
though he was a man of a nature as gentle as 'twas strong. "I will own
that I had ever thought of them as strange, unbeauteous red things a
man almost held in fear, and whose ugliness a woman but loved because
she was near angel; but this one--" and he drew nearer still with a
grave countenance--"surely it looks not like the rest. 'Tis not so red
and crumple-visaged--its tiny face hath a sort of comeliness. It hath a
broad brow, and its eyes will sure be large and well set."

The Duchess slipped her fair arm about his neck--he was so near to her
'twas easy done--and her smile trembled into sweet tears which were
half laughter.

"Ah, we love him so," she cried, "how could we think him like any
other? We love him so and are so happy and so proud."