ight, when we
went to bed, his bairn slept in _his_ arms, and my bairn slept in mine.
Well then we had them christened, and his was Jacky and mine was Jemmy,
and he _was_ proud of his child that day--as proud as Punch; he was
indeed, my dear. He carried him all the way--Oh, dear! oh, dear! what
_have_ I done!' said the old woman, as she turned to the bed and saw
Poppy's mother in tears.

'Why, you're crying, my dear; I oughtn't to have told you. What a silly
old goose I am! I ought to have remembered that lad of mine, and how
he's gone and left you, instead of giving a hand with his own babies, as
my master did. Dear me, dear me, whatever was I thinking of?'

'Oh, granny,' said her daughter-in-law, 'do tell me about them; I like
to hear--I do indeed; please go on.'

'Well, my dear, if you _will_ have it so, I'll go on. They grew up
beautiful babies, they did indeed, and didn't folks admire them!
There's lots of people drives through our village when it's the
season at Scarborough; they takes carriages, my dear, and they come
driving out with lads in red jackets riding on them poor tired
horses--"post-williams," I think they call them. I'm telling you no
lie, my dear, when I tell you them little lads has brought in scores
of threepenny bits that the ladies have thrown them from their
carriages, when the girl took them out by the lodge gate; they was
so taken with the pretty dears, they was.

'Well, all went on well, my lass, till the teeth began to come,--oh,
them teeth, what a nuisance they are! I've lost mine, my dear, all but
two, and I'm sure it's a good job to have done with 'em--they're nothing
but bother, always aching and breaking and worrying you. Well, the
teething went very hard with the babies; his child was the worst,
though, and one day little Jacky had a convulsion fit, and didn't my
master send off for the doctor in a hurry; and all that night he sat up
watching his bairn, for fear it should have another fit. Doctor came
once or twice after that, for the little lad kept poorly, though the
fits did not come back.

'"Ay, doctor," I says one day, when he had little Jack in his arms, and
was saying what a pretty boy he was--"Ay, doctor," I says, "but look at
_my_ child," and I held up little Jemmy. "_He's_ the beauty now, isn't
he, doctor?"

'"You're very fond of that boy, aren't you?" says doctor.

'"Fond of him! Why, doctor," I says, "I love him till I often think I
could go bare-foot all my life a