kissed her wet eyes, and made her stand and look at baby
with him, hand in hand. It was a pretty picture.

The buxom woman swelled her feathers, as simple women do when they
exhibit a treasure of this sort; she lifted the little mite slowly up
and down, and said, "Oh, you Beauty!" and then went off into various
inarticulate sounds, which I recommend to the particular study of the
new philosophers: they cannot have been invented after speech; that
would be retrogression; they must be the vocal remains of that hairy,
sharp-eared quadruped, our Progenitor, who by accident discovered
language, and so turned Biped, and went ahead of all the other hairy
quadrupeds, whose ears were too long or not sharp enough to stumble
upon language.

Under cover of these primeval sounds Lady Bassett drew her husband a
little apart, and looking in his face with piteous wistfulness, said,
"You won't mind Richard Bassett and his baby now?"

"Not I."

"You will never have another fit while you live?"

"I promise."

"You will always be happy?"

"I must be an ungrateful scoundrel else, my dear."

"Then baby is our best friend. Oh, you little angel!" And she pounced
on the mite, and kissed it far harder than Sir Charles had. Heaven
knows what these gentle creatures are so rough with their mouths to
children, but so it is.

And now how can a mere male relate all the pretty childish things that
were done and said to baby, and of baby, before the inevitable
squalling began, and baby was taken away to be consoled by another of
his subjects.

Sir Charles and Lady Bassett had a thousand things to tell each other,
to murmur in each other's ears, sitting lovingly close to each other.

But when all was quiet, and everybody else was in bed, Lady Bassett
plucked up courage and said, "Charles, I am not quite happy. There is
one thing wanting." And then she hid her face in her hands and blushed.
"I cannot nurse him."

"Never mind," said Sir Charles kindly.

"You forgive me?"

"Forgive you, my poor girl! Why, is that a crime?"

"It leads to so many things. You don't know what a plague a nurse is,
and makes one jealous."

"Well, but it is only for a time. Come, Bella, this is a little
peevish. Don't let us be ungrateful to Heaven. As for me, while you and
our child live, I am proof against much greater misfortunes than that."

Then Lady Bassett cleared up, and the subject dropped.

But it was renewed next morning in a more definite form.