over, and hid her face on the bounteous breast that mounted to her.

"You're a sweet one," murmured the soft woman, patting her back, and
rocking her. "You're a rose, you are! and a bud on your stalk. Haven't
told a word to your husband, my dear?" she asked quickly.

Lucy shook her head, looking sly and shy.

"That's right. We'll give him a surprise; let it come all at once on
him, and thinks he--losin' breath 'I'm a father!' Nor a hint even you
haven't give him?"

Lucy kissed her, to indicate it was quite a secret.

"Oh! you are a sweet one," said Bessy Berry, and rocked her more closely
and lovingly.

Then these two had a whispered conversation, from which let all of male
persuasion retire a space nothing under one mile.

Returning, after a due interval, we see Mrs. Berry counting on her
fingers' ends. Concluding the sum, she cries prophetically: "Now this
right everything--a baby in the balance! Now I say this angel-infant
come from on high. It's God's messenger, my love! and it's not wrong to
say so. He thinks you worthy, or you wouldn't 'a had one--not for all
the tryin' in the world, you wouldn't, and some tries hard enough, poor
creatures! Now let us rejice and make merry! I'm for cryin' and
laughin', one and the same. This is the blessed seal of matrimony, which
Berry never stamp on me. It's be hoped it's a boy. Make that man a
grandfather, and his grandchild a son, and you got him safe. Oh! this