‘It's happen one as yo'd like to know, though, mother.’
‘It's happen one as you'd like to tell, lad,’ replied the old woman, softening.
‘Well, if we durnd tell yo', yo'll know soon enough, for it's one o' them secrets as willn't keep—will it, Miriam?’ asked Matt of his blushing wife.
But Miriam was silent, and refused to lift her face from the pattern of the plate over which she bent low.
‘Dun you think yor too owd to be a gronmother?’ asked Matt of his parent, growing in boldness as he warmed to his confession.
‘If I were thee I'd ax mysel if I were young enugh to be a faither, that I would,’ said the old woman.
‘Well, I shall happen be one afore so long, shornd I, Miriam?’
But tears were streaming from Miriam's eyes, and she answered not.
And then there dawned on the mind of Deborah the cause of her son's confusion, and a light stole across the hard lines of her face as she said: