"I've got news—news, news!" he exclaimed, wading through his own perspiration to where she sat. "I can guess what it is," the girl remarked smilingly, as she reached out a hand to him, but remained seated. "It's a real, live baby born to Lydia, wife of Methuselah, the woman also being of goodly years. It is, isn't it."
"The fattest, finest, most 'scrumpshus' son of all the ages that ever—"
Kitty laughed happily and very whimsically. "Like none since Moses was found among the bulrushes! Where was this one found, and what do you intend to call him—Jesse, after his 'pa'?"
"No—nothing so common. He's to be called Shiel—Shiel Crozier Bulrush, that's to be his name."
The face of the girl became a shade pensive now. "Oh! And do you think you can guarantee that he will be worth the name? Do you never think what his father is?"
"I'm starting him right with that name. I can do so much, anyway," laughed the imperturbable one. "And Mrs. Bulrush, after her great effort—how is she?
"Flying—simply flying. Earth not good enough for her. Simply flying. But here—here is more news. Guess what—it's for you. I've just come from the post office, and they said there was an English letter for you, so I brought it."
He handed it over. She laid it in her lap and waited as though for him to go.
"Can't I hear how he is? He's the best man that ever crossed my path," he said.
"It happens to be in his wife's, not his, handwriting—did ever such a scrap of a woman write so sprawling a hand!" she replied, holding the letter up.