“Now,” cried she, in a tone half of triumph, half of tenderness, “look there!”
“A cradle? And a baby?”
“Your baby.”
“Is it a boy?” asked Hereward, who saw in his mind’s eye a thing which would grow and broaden at his knee year by year, and learn from him to ride, to shoot, to fight. “Happy for him if he does not learn worse from me,” thought Hereward, with a sudden movement of humility and contrition, which was surely marked in heaven; for Torfrida marked it on earth.
But she mistook its meaning.
“Do not be vexed. It is a girl.”
“Never mind!” as if it was a calamity over which he was bound to comfort the mother. “If she is half as beautiful as you look at this moment, what splintering of lances there will be about her! How jolly, to see the lads hewing at each other, while our daughter sits in the pavilion, as Queen of Love!”
Torfrida laughed. “You think of nothing but fighting, bear of the North Seas.”
“Every one to his trade. Well, yes, I am glad that it is a girl.”
“I thought you seemed vexed. Why did you cross yourself?”