Lo, when Lucy returned to her, Mrs. Berry surrounded her with her arms, and drew her into feminine depths. “Oh, you blessed!” she cried in most meaning tone, “you good, lovin’, proper little wife, you!”
“What is it, Mrs. Berry!” lisps Lucy, opening the most innocent blue eyes.
“As if I couldn’t see, you pet! It was my flurry blinded me, or I’d ’a marked ye the fast shock. Thinkin’ to deceive me!”
Mrs. Berry’s eyes spoke generations. Lucy’s wavered; she coloured all over, and hid her face on the bounteous breast that mounted to her.
“You’re a sweet one,” murmured the soft woman, patting her back, and rocking her. “You’re a rose, you are! and a bud on your stalk. Haven’t told a word to your husband, my dear?” she asked quickly.
Lucy shook her head, looking sly and shy.
“That’s right. We’ll give him a surprise; let it come all at once on him, and thinks he—losin’ breath ‘I’m a father!’ Nor a hint even you haven’t give him?”
Lucy kissed her, to indicate it was quite a secret.
“Oh! you are a sweet one,” said Bessy Berry, and rocked her more closely and lovingly.
Then these two had a whispered conversation, from which let all of male persuasion retire a space nothing under one mile.