'I'll bring it down to you, ma'am. One of the lodgers is nursing it; but her husband's grumbling at her, and making her miserable about it He says he's got enough of his own; and so he has.'
By this time Mrs. Manning had the baby ready--she had dressed the child in some old baby-clothes of her own--and before she let it go out of her arms, she said, as if the little thing could understand:
'Kiss sister, baby. You'll never see her again, perhaps; and if you do, you won't know her.'
She placed their lips close together; and at that moment they opened their eyes, and smiled prettily on one another. The man and the two women stood by, gazing earnestly at the babes. Tears were in Mrs. Manning's eyes, as she witnessed the strange parting; the landlady was silent and pensive; and the man, with his hands behind him, seemed to be suddenly engrossed in the consideration of some social problem, which he found too perplexing for him. His wife raised the fortunate babe to his face.
'A happy New-year to you, little un,' said the not unkindly man, as he kissed the child.
'Suppose they were our'n, Sam,' said his wife, softly and tearfully; 'we shouldn't like this to happen.'
'But they're not our'n,' replied her husband; 'and that makes all the difference.'
And yet there was a wistful expression on his face, as the landlady took the baby out of the room.
'I've kept the prettiest one,' his wife whispered to him--'the one with the dimple.'
The lady and gentleman--she with her new charge wrapped in her warm shawl, and pressed closely to her bosom--walked briskly through the cold air towards their home, which lay in a square, about a mile from Stoney-alley. In the centre of the square was a garden, the wood-growth in which, though bare of leaves, looked as beautiful in their white mantle as ever they had done in their brightest summer. The snow-lined trees stood out boldly, yet gracefully, and their every branch, fringed in purest white, was an emblem of loveliness. They gleamed grandly in the moon's light, mute witnesses of the greatness of Him whose lightest work is an evidence of perfect wisdom and goodness.