good-wives shook her head over it, Lovey grew calm of a sudden and
(as it seemed) with the calm of despair. She grew obstinate too.

"My blessed cheeld!" she kept repeating. "The tender worm of 'en!
But I'll have 'en back, if I've to go to the naughty place to fetch
'en. Why, what sort of a tale be I to pitch to my Dan'l, if he comes
home and his firstborn gone?"

They shook their heads again over this. It would be a brave blow for
the man, but (said one to another) he that marries a fool must look
for thorns in his bed.

"What's done can't be undone," they told her. "You'd best let a
two-three of us stay the night and coax 'ee from frettin'. It's bad
for the system, and you so soon over child-birth."

Lovey opened her eyes wide on them.

"Lord's sake!" she said, "you don't reckon I'm goin' to sit down
under this? What?--and him the beautifullest, straightest cheeld
that ever was in Gwithian Parish! Go'st thy ways home, every wan.
Piskies steal my cheeld an' Dan'l's, would they? I'll pisky 'em!"

She showed them forth--"put them to doors" as we say in the Duchy--
every one, the Priest included. She would have none of their
consolation.

"You mean it kindly, naybors, I don't say; but tiddn' what I happen
to want. I wants my cheeld back; an' I'll _have'n_ back, what's
more!"