the Baby, gossiping among a knot of sage old matrons, and affecting
to be wondrous old and matronly herself, and leaning in a staid,
demure old way upon her husband's arm, attempting--she! such a bud
of a little woman--to convey the idea of having abjured the
vanities of the world in general, and of being the sort of person
to whom it was no novelty at all to be a mother; yet in the same
breath, they showed her, laughing at the Carrier for being awkward,
and pulling up his shirt-collar to make him smart, and mincing
merrily about that very room to teach him how to dance!

They turned, and stared immensely at him when they showed her with
the Blind Girl; for, though she carried cheerfulness and animation
with her wheresoever she went, she bore those influences into Caleb
Plummer's home, heaped up and running over. The Blind Girl's love
for her, and trust in her, and gratitude to her; her own good busy
way of setting Bertha's thanks aside; her dexterous little arts for
filling up each moment of the visit in doing something useful to
the house, and really working hard while feigning to make holiday;
her bountiful provision of those standing delicacies, the Veal and
Ham-Pie and the bottles of Beer; her radiant little face arriving
at the door, and taking leave; the wonderful expression in her
whole self, from her neat foot to the crown of her head, of being a
part of the establishment--a something necessary to it, which it
couldn't be without; all this the Fairies revelled in, and loved
her for. And once again they looked upon him all at once,
appealingly, and seemed to say, while some among them nestled in
her dress and fondled her, 'Is this the wife who has betrayed your
confidence!'

More than once, or twice, or thrice, in the long thoughtful night,