ime to clasp her.

"Thank God," Jane Haden said, as she went to the front door and beckoned
the others in, "she has fainted."

"Ay, I thawt as much," one of the women said, "and a good job too. It's
always best so till he is brought home, and things are straightened up."

Between them Mary Simpson was tenderly lifted, and carried upstairs and
laid on the bed of a lodger's room there. The cradle was brought up and
put beside it, and then Jane Haden took her seat by the bed, one woman
went for the doctor, while the others prepared the room below. In a
short time all that remained of Jack Simpson was borne home on a
stretcher, on the shoulders of six of his fellow-workmen, and laid in
the darkened room. The doctor came and went for the next two days, and
then his visits ceased.

It had gone hard with Mary Simpson. She had passed from one long
fainting fit into another, until at last she lay as quiet as did Jack
below; and the doctor, murmuring "A weak heart, poor little woman; the
shock was too much for her," took his departure for the last time from
the house. Then Jane Haden, who had not left her friend's side ever
since she was carried upstairs, wrapped the baby in a shawl and went
home, a neighbour carrying the cradle.

When Bill Haden returned from work he found the room done up, the table
laid for tea, and the kettle on the fire. His wife was sitting by it
with the baby on her lap.

"Well, lass," he said, as he entered the room, "so the poor gal's gone.
I heard it as I came along. Thou'st's had a hard two days on't. Hulloa!
what's that?"

"It's the baby, Bill," his wife said.

"What hast brought un here for?" he asked roughly.

Jane Haden did not answer directly, but standing in front of her
husband, removed the handkerchief which covered the baby's face as he
lay on her arm.

"Look at him, Bill; he's something like Jack, don't thou see it?"

"Not a bit of it," he said gruffly. "Kids don't take after their father,
as pups do."

"I can see the likeness quite plain, Bill. Now," she went on, laying her
hand on his shoulder, "I want to keep him. We ain't got none of our own,
Bill, and I can't abear the thought of his going to the House."

Bill Haden stood irresolute.

"I shouldn't like to think of Jack's kid in the House; still he'll be a
heap of trouble--worse nor a dozen pups, and no chance of winning a
prize with him nohow, or of selling him, or swopping him if his points
don't turn out right. Still,