teady. Chirp, chirp, chirp! Cricket
going in to finish him. Hum, hum, hum--m--m! Kettle not to be finished.
Until at last they got so jumbled together, in the hurry-skurry,
helter-skelter, of the match, that whether the kettle chirped and the
Cricket hummed, or the Cricket chirped and the kettle hummed, or they
both chirped and both hummed, it would have taken a clearer head than
yours or mine to have decided with anything like certainty. But of this
there is no doubt: that, the kettle and the Cricket, at one and the same
moment, and by some power of amalgamation best known to themselves,
sent, each, his fireside song of comfort streaming into a ray of the
candle that shone out through the window, and a long way down the lane.
And this light, bursting on a certain person who, on the instant,
approached towards it through the gloom, expressed the whole thing to
him, literally in a twinkling, and cried, "Welcome home, old fellow!
Welcome home, my boy!"

This end attained, the kettle, being dead beat, boiled over, and was
taken off the fire. Mrs. Peerybingle then went running to the door,
where, what with the wheels of a cart, the tramp of a horse, the voice
of a man, the tearing in and out of an excited dog, and the surprising
and mysterious appearance of a baby, there was soon the very
What's-his-name to play.

Where the baby came from, or how Mrs. Peerybingle got hold of it in that
flash of time, _I_ don't know. But a live baby there was in Mrs.
Peerybingle's arms; and a pretty tolerable amount of pride she seemed to
have in it, when she was drawn gently to the fire, by a sturdy figure of
a man, much taller and much older than herself, who had to stoop a long
way down to kiss her. But she was worth the trouble. Six foot six, with
the lumbago, might have done it.

"Oh goodness, John!" said Mrs. P. "What a state you're in with the
weather!"

[Illustration: _"A dot and"--here he glanced at the baby--"a dot and
carry--I won't say it, for fear I should spoil it; but I was very near a
joke."_]

He was something the worse for it undeniably. The thick mist hung in
clots upon his eyelashes like candied thaw; and, between the fog and
fire together, there were rainbows in his very whiskers.

"Why, you see, Dot," John made answer slowly, as he unrolled a shawl
from about his throat, and warmed his hands; "it--it an't exactly summer
weather. So no wonder."

"I wish you wouldn't call me Dot, John. I don't like it," said Mrs.