"You are hard to please," she said, with an angry laugh. "I think it is a very sweet little name."
"The child will not always be a baby," said John.
"Oh, no: I suppose if we all live long enough he will some time be a—possibly disagreeable man, and punish us well for all the care we have spent upon him," Elinor said.
"I don't want to make you angry, Elinor——"
"No, I don't suppose you do. You have been very nice to me, John. You have neither scolded me nor given me good advice. I never expected you would have been so forbearing. But I have always felt you must mean to give me a good knock at the end."
"You do me great injustice," he said, much wounded. "You know that I think only of what is best for you—and the child."
They were approaching the shore, and Mrs. Dennistoun's white cap was visible in the waning light, looking out for them from the door. Elinor said hastily, "And the child? I don't think that you care much for the child."
"There you are mistaken, Elinor. I did not perhaps at first: but I acknowledge that a little thing like that does somehow creep into one's heart."
Her face, which had been gloomy, brightened up as if a sunbeam had suddenly burst upon it. "Oh, bless you, John—Uncle John; how good and how kind, and what a dear friend and brother you are! And I such a wretch, ready to quarrel with those I love best! But, John, let me keep quiet, let me keep still, don't make me rake up the past. He is such a baby, such a baby! There cannot be any question of telling him anything for years and years!"
"I thought you were lost," said Mrs. Dennistoun, calling to them. "I began to think of all kinds of things that might have happened—of the steamboat running into you, or the boat going on a rock, or——"