"Spring come round at last,—as come it will, whether them that watch for its comin' are cryin' or laughin',—and the sun shined in at the south winder and made a patch o' gold on the floor,—all we had, to be sure,—when one day comes the news we had been a-lookin' for so long,—the Dauphin was a-comin' in!
"'And me here in bed!' says my mother; 'that'll never do. How good-for-nothin' I be!'
"Then she told me to run and fetch her best gown out of the chest, and she was out o' bed the next minute; and though she looked as pale as the sheet she managed somehow to dress herself. Then she told me to fetch her the lookin'-glass where she sot by the bedside; and when she seen her face the tears came to her eyes, and one little low moan, that seemed away down in her heart, made me shudder. 'I don't care for my own sake,' she said, puttin' her arm across my neck; 'but what will your father think o' me?'
"Then she sot the glass up afore her, and combed her hair half a dozen different ways, but none on 'em suited. She didn't look like herself, she said, nohow; and then she told me to climb to the upper shelf and git down the fine shawl, and see if that would mend matters any.
"I fetched the ring too; but it wouldn't stay on a single finger; and so she give it to me, smilin', and sayin' I might wear it till she got well.
"I sot the house in order myself, with her a-tellin' on me some about things. The two silver teaspoons was burnished up, and stuck for show into the edge of the dresser; the three glass tumblers was sot forth in full view; and the tin coffee-pot, so high and so narrer at the top, was turned sideways on the shelf, so as to make the most on 't; and the little brown earthen-ware teapot was histed atop o' that. We had a dozen eggs we had been a-savin', for we kep' a hen on the ruf, and them I took and sot endwise in the sand-bowl, so that, to all appearance, the whole bowl was full of eggs; and I raly thought the appintments, one and all, made us look considerable like rich folks.
"'Do go up to the ruf, Johnny, my child,' says my mother, at last, 'and see what you will see.'
"She had sot two hours, with her shawl held just so across her bosom, and was a-growin' impatient and faint like.
"She looked at me so eager, when I come down, I could hardly bear to tell her that I could only just see the Dauphin a-lyin' out, and that she looked black and ugly, and that I couldn't see nothin' furder. But I did tell it, and then come another o' them little low moans away down in her heart. Directly, though, she smiled agin, and told me to go to the chest and open the till, and get the table-cloth and the pewter platter that I would find there. 'We must have our supper-table shine its best to-night,' she said.
"Agin and agin I went up to the ruf, but I didn't see nothin' no time except the whaler a-lyin' a little out, and lookin' black and ugly, as if there wa'n't no good a-comin' with her.