"Oh! no--never, never! But she'll love us always--you'll see if she won't."
"Don't you set your mind too much on it. Perhaps our baby'll see somebody by-and-by that she'll love better than you or me, and then we shall go to the wall. We're like fiddles, Sally, and Nature's the fiddler, and plays on us."
Open-eyed, and mentally as well as physically wide awake, Sally listened without exactly understanding, but dimly conscious that something very fine was being propounded to her.
"There are not many strings in us, Sally, but, Lord! the number o' tunes that Nature plays on us! And we go through life dancing to 'em, or hobbling to 'em, as the case may be. As this little picture'll do, according to the kind of music that comes to her. As for what takes place when Nature's played her last tune on us, that's beyond you and me, Sally."
"Yes, Mr. Dumbrick," assented Sally, feeling it incumbent upon her to say something, but groping now in such dark depths that she saw no way out of them.
Seth's next utterances, however, brought a little light to her.
"In all that, there are certain things--not many--that we may fairly take credit for. You've got a big heart in a little body. I'd wager my cobbler's stall that I'm going to sit on in the clouds when your dream comes true--I'd wager that to a brass thimble that if you had only one bit o' bread, and you was hungry as you could be, you'd give it to baby, if she cried for it."
Two or three bright tears glistened in Sally's eyes, which Seth accepted as confirmation.
"Take credit for that, Sally."
"Thank you, Mr. Dumbrick," said Sally gratefully, satisfied with this reward of good words for good intentions.