'God above!' muttered Sally. 'He's fooled her worse'n me!'
'Come and look at the baby, my dear,' she said in a voice astonishingly soft. She looked at Hazel keenly. 'Dunna you know?' she asked.
'What?'
'As you're going to have a baby?'
Hazel sprang up, all denial. But Sally, having told the children to play, spoke for a long time in a low tone, and finally convinced a white, sick, trembling Hazel of the fact. Not being sensitive herself, she did not realize the ghastly terror caused by her lurid details of the coming event.
Hazel looked so ill that Sally tried to administer consolation. 'Maybe it'll be a boy, and you'll be fine and pleased to see 'un growing a fine tall man like Reddin.'
Hazel burst into tears, so that the children stopped their play to watch and laugh.
'But I dunna want it to grow up like Jack,' she said. 'I want it to grow up like Ed'ard, and none else!'
'Well! You are a queer girl. If you like him as you call Ed'ard what for did you take up with Jack?'
'I dunno.'