"Mind ye, ye're mine now, Alice; an' what's mine's mine, an' I won't
have it abused. I knows you twice the woman you was afore, and all the
world couldn't gi' me such another Christmas-box--no, not if it was
all gold watches and roast beef."

When Mr. Greatorex returned to his wife's room, and thought to find
her asleep as he had left her, he was dismayed to hear sounds of soft
weeping from the bed. Some tone or stray word, never intended to reach
her ear, had been enough to reveal the truth concerning her baby.

"Hush! hush!" he said, with more love in his heart than had moved
there for many months, and therefore more in his tone than she had
heard for as many;--"if you cry you will be ill. Hush, my dear!"

In a moment, ere he could prevent her, she had flung her arms around
his neck as he stooped over her.

"Husband! husband!" she cried, "is it my fault?"

"You behaved perfectly," he returned. "No woman could have been
braver."

"Ah, but I wouldn't stay at home when you wanted me."

"Never mind that now, my child," he said.

At the word she pulled his face down to hers.

"I have _you_, and I don't care," he added.