"Talk of 'em to-morrow," said Ann; "you've gallied your brains enough for fifty fathers."
"I feel so much happier, Ann, with some one whom I shall have a right to love."
"Well, you've a right to love who you like, o' course."
"And I shan't love my faithful, gentle nurse the worse for it."
"God bless you!—what a gal you are!"
"Life seems beginning with me for the first time—opening new scenes, new faces, new affections. Yes, Ann, I am happy to-night."
"Then I'm glad he's come—I think he's turned up for the best; although," she muttered to herself, "I shouldn't be very proud of another father like him for myself. He's such a rum un!"
Meanwhile Harriet Wesden—what had followed the coming of this "rum un" to her? Was her happiness fading away, as Mattie Gray's advanced? Let us see.