This was what Harry had been brought up to expect, and the prospect that he had to give up on marrying Molly. He was grateful to his father, for after all, pleasant as life was for him even with his narrow income, it was likely to be a great deal pleasanter when he would not have to count every cent so closely.
“Yes, yes, you are one who has the luck to ‘eat his cake and have it too,’” said the old gentleman irritably; “but I’m doing it just as much for Molly and the baby as for you.”
Yes, there was a baby,—a baby just thirty-six hours old when Mr. Bishop announced his intention to the young father; and Harry carried back to Molly that evening a very glad heart. The baby was a girl, and Molly’s only shadow was that Harry did not seem to admire it so much as she thought it deserved.
“You mean to say you don’t think it’s pretty, Harry?” she had asked when she exhibited the little red, squirming thing in its nest of flannel.
Harry shook his head doubtfully. “I may see some beauty later when, when it gets into some sort of shape, and its head is screwed tighter; at present I don’t admire it, but, as Mark Twain says, ‘I’ve a certain respect for it, for its father’s sake.’”
“Oh, Harry!”
This was in the morning before he left home, and when he returned at night he went up to Molly’s room and kissed her. He thought she must certainly see the good news in his face, so accustomed was he to her reading his countenance.
“Well, Molly, don’t you want to know the news?”
“But you haven’t asked after the baby;—don’t you want to kiss it?”
“My dear Molly, your serenity told me how the baby was,—and—and I wouldn’t disturb it to kiss it.”