"She thinks!" said the baronet.

The delicate question how she was to treat her uncle, he settled
generously. Farmer Blaize should come up to Raynham when he would: Lucy
must visit him at least three times a week. He had Farmer Blaize and
Mrs. Berry to study, and really excellent Aphorisms sprang from the plain
human bases this natural couple presented.

"It will do us no harm," he thought, "some of the honest blood of the
soil in our veins." And he was content in musing on the parentage of the
little cradled boy. A common sight for those who had the entry to the
library was the baronet cherishing the hand of his daughter-in-law.

So Richard was crossing the sea, and hearts at Raynham were beating
quicker measures as the minutes progressed. That night he would be with
them. Sir Austin gave Lucy a longer, warmer salute when she came down to
breakfast in the morning. Mrs. Berry waxed thrice amorous. "It's your
second bridals, ye sweet livin' widow!" she said. "Thanks be the Lord!
it's the same man too! and a baby over the bed-post," she appended
seriously.

"Strange," Berry declared it to be, "strange I feel none o' this to my
Berry now. All my feelin's o' love seem t'ave gone into you two sweet
chicks."

In fact, the faithless male Berry complained of being treated badly, and
affected a superb jealousy of the baby; but the good dame told him that
if he suffered at all he suffered his due. Berry's position was
decidedly uncomfortable. It could not be concealed from the lower
household that he had a wife in the establishment, and for the