"It will be a damned shame," Corp said huskily, "if that woman never has no bairns o' her ain."
They watched her crooning over the child, playing with him for a long time. You could not have believed that she required to be watched. She told him with hugs that she had come back to him at last; it was her first admission that she knew she had been away and a wild hope came to Tommy that along the road he could not take her she might be drawn by this little child.
She discovered a rent in the child's pinafore and must mend it at once. She ran upstairs, as a matter of course, to her work-box, and brought down a needle and thread. It was quite as if she was at home at last.
"But you don't live here now, Grizel," Tommy said, when she drew back at his proposal that they should go away; "you live at the doctor's house."
"Do I, Gavinia?" she said beseechingly.
"Is it here you want to bide?" Corp asked, and she nodded her head several times.
"It would be so much more convenient," she said, looking at the child.
"Would you take her back, Gavinia," Tommy asked humbly, "if she continues to want it?"
Gavinia did not answer.
"Woman!" cried Corp.