Mr. Temple replying in the affirmative, the young mother became seized with another spasm of terror.
"Then Father Duffy believes he has got that child in the Catholic Church, I suppose! O, what a fearful piece of work you have made of it! No doubt, like King Solomon, he will be for dividing the child, that he may get at least half its soul for purgatory. And if I had died, you would have brought up dear little Johnnie a Catholic! Your great hurry for his baptism shows it. That is the regard you would have shown for my memory! But I am not dead yet; and while I live, the child goes with me to St Mark's. I will still do all I can to bring him up respectably."
A day or two after appeared in the city a foreign songstress who was setting the whole world mad. John Temple took his wife to hear her. She threw off, as they had been a bundle of straw, all these troubles that had so crazed her. She unlocked the best chamber, went in, and came out looking beautiful as when a bride. Among her friends again she appeared as if no cloud of sorrow had ever darkened her life.
John Temple recognized his wife again. By these repeated scenes of sunshine and storm, he learned to rejoice in the one, and to remain undisturbed in the other; against the exuberance of one to present the parasol of calmness, and the umbrella of patience to ward off descending floods.
Three years later, one winter's evening at tea, the dining-room servant informed John, upon his inquiring for her mistress, that that lady wished to see him in the best chamber. He had not seen her since early in the morning. At dinner he had been told that she was lying down, and wished not to be disturbed. Having hurried through his tea, he repaired to the room designated. The first object that met his view was very large Mrs. Biggs overflowing the arm-chair, with a roll of white flannel in her lap, over which Althea and Johnny were absorbingly bending.
"We've got a baby, papa!" "Mrs. Biggs has brought us a baby!" cried out the children simultaneously.
Mr. Temple evinced the greatest surprise, of course, but walked straight up to his wife. She smiled upon him mischievously, saying:
"You are surprised to find me here and not in our own room?"
When the perplexed husband had nodded his head, the wife continued:
"I wished to be up-stairs for two reasons: the second is because they say it is a sign that the child who beholds the light for the first time above stairs will be surely rich; and the first, because—because—O, John, I have stolen a march on you this time—I wanted Dr. Browne to be sent for and the christening over with before you should know there was a baby in the house. Little Flora Isabella Ernestine has been already christened;" and the wife's eyes were full of triumph.