Nancy blocked him at the foot of them with both hands on his shoulders. “You'll be quiet, then,” she whispered. “You were always a rasonable man, Pete, and she's wonderful wake—promise you'll be quiet.”
“TO be like a mouse,” said Pete, and he whipped off his long sea-boots and crept on tiptoe into the room.
There she lay with the morning light on her, and a face as white as the quilt that she was plucking with her long fingers.
“Thank God for a living mother and a living child,” said Pete, in a broken gurgle, and then he drew down the bedclothes a very little, and there, too, was the child on the pillow of her other arm.
Then do what he would to be quiet, he could not help but make a shout.
“He's there! Yes, he is! He is, though! Joy! Joy!”
The women were down on him like a flock of geese. “Out of this, sir, if you can't behave better!'
“Excuse me, ladies,” said Pete humbly, “I'm not in the habit of babies. A bit excited, you see, Mistress Nancy, ma'am. Couldn't help putting a bull of a roar out, not being used of the like.” Then, turning back to the bed, “Aw, Kitty, the beauty it is, though! And the big! As big as my fist already. And the fat! It's as fat as a bluebottle. And the straight! Well, not so very straight, neither, but the complexion at him now! Give him to me, Kitty I give him to me, the young rascal. Let me have a hould of him, anyway.”
“Him, indeed! Listen to the man,” said Nancy.
“It's a girl, Pete,” said Grannie, lifting the child out of the bed.