“Nonsense, Will; it is you all over, even to its little hands.”
“And your good mother, Will, how did you leave her?”
“Oh, sir!” cried Jessie, reproachfully; “do you think we could have the heart to leave Mother,—so lone and rheumatic too? She is tending baby now,—always does while I am in the shop.”
Here Kenelm followed the young couple into the parlour, where, seated by the window, they found old Mrs. Somers reading the Bible and rocking the baby, who slept peacefully in its cradle.
“Will,” said Kenelm, bending his dark face over the infant, “I will tell you a pretty thought of a foreign poet’s, which has been thus badly translated:
“‘Blest babe, a boundless world this bed so narrow seems to thee;
Grow man, and narrower than this bed the boundless world shall
be.’” 1
(1)Schiller.
“I don’t think that is true, sir,” said Will, simply; “for a happy home is a world wide enough for any man.”
Tears started into Jessie’s eyes; she bent down and kissed—not the baby, but the cradle. “Will made it.” She added blushing, “I mean the cradle, sir.”
Time flew past while Kenelm talked with Will and the old mother, for Jessie was soon summoned back to the shop; and Kenelm was startled when he found the half-hour’s grace allowed to him was over, and Jessie put her head in at the door and said, “Mrs. Braefield is waiting for you.”