“I think it will be,” she said, “but that’s for God to decide.”
“Nobody don’t want no more girls,” declared the eldest daughter, and her aunt told her not to speak so.
“’Tisn’t what we want; ’tis what our Father in Heaven wants, Milly. And if He sends father and mother a little girl, we must welcome it just so hearty as you and your sisters were welcomed in your turn.”
Mr. Dolbear was restless, but he ate as good a dinner as usual and then, having heard that all was going well, went into the orchard with his pipe. The children were despatched to Sunday school and presently an old doctor arrived, visited Mary and then joined the farmer under the apple trees.
“A matter of form,” he said. “I come as a matter of form, Tom.”
Mr. Dolbear enquired as to the law of averages, and the medical man advised him to set no faith upon it.
“When you’re dealing with the statistics and the population as a whole, such things work out pretty regular, I grant you,” he explained, “but when you’re dealing with one woman, who has got into a habit, then it’s not wise to indulge in general principles. Habit is stronger than anything but death, Tom; and though you may fairly hope for a son, I may say in sporting language that the betting is a shade against.”
“You think ’twill be a girl, doctor?”
“I do—not long odds, but about two to one.”
Within doors Lydia was standing reading a letter with shaking hands, while silent, strained, staring, humped up in the chair opposite her, sat Ned Dingle. He had come from Ashprington, burst in upon her while she was helping a maiden to wash up, ordered her to follow him to the parlour and then broken the fatal news.