ext the skin," proceeded Dolly, taking up the
little shirt, and putting it on.

"Yes," said Marner, docilely, bringing his eyes very close, that they
might be initiated in the mysteries; whereupon Baby seized his head
with both her small arms, and put her lips against his face with
purring noises.

"See there," said Dolly, with a woman's tender tact, "she's fondest o'
you. She wants to go o' your lap, I'll be bound. Go, then: take her,
Master Marner; you can put the things on, and then you can say as
you've done for her from the first of her coming to you."

Marner took her on his lap, trembling with an emotion mysterious to
himself, at something unknown dawning on his life. Thought and feeling
were so confused within him, that if he had tried to give them
utterance, he could only have said that the child was come instead of
the gold--that the gold had turned into the child. He took the
garments from Dolly, and put them on under her teaching; interrupted,
of course, by Baby's gymnastics.

"There, then! why, you take to it quite easy, Master Marner," said
Dolly; "but what shall you do when you're forced to sit in your loom?
For she'll get busier and mischievouser every day--she will, bless her.
It's lucky as you've got that high hearth i'stead of a grate, for that
keeps the fire more out of her reach: but if you've got anything as can
be spilt or broke, or as is fit to cut her fingers off, she'll be at
it--and it is but right you should know."

Silas meditated a little while in some perplexity. "I'll tie her to
the leg o' the loom," he said at last--"tie her with a good long strip
o' something."

"Well, mayhap that'll do, as it's a little gell, for they're easier
persuaded to sit i' one place nor the lads. I know what the lads are;
for I've had four--four I've had, God knows--and if you was to take and
tie 'em up, they'd make a fighting and a crying as if you was ringing
the pigs. But I'll bring you my little chair, and some bits o' red rag
and things for her to play wi'; an' she'll sit and chatter to 'em as if
they was alive. Eh, if it wasn't a sin to the lads to wish 'em made
different, bless 'em, I should ha' been glad for one of 'em to be a
little gell; and to think as I could ha' taught her to scour, and mend,
and the knitting, and everything. But I can teach 'em this little un,
Master Marner, when she gets old enough."

"But she'll be _my_ little un," said Marner, rather hastily. "She'll be
nobody