It was too true; Dick Hart's wife was very near her confinement, and on this very night, unconscious of the dreadful event that had taken place, she was busy getting together the little things she had made for her first-born, and recalling the feelings she had experienced before she became a mother--feelings in which joy and pride were so commingled as to be inseparable. The time was night, in the wane of summer, and many a smile came upon the woman's lips, and many a tender thought dwelt in her mind, as she laid out the little garments and examined them to see where they wanted a stitch. Mrs. Hart had been married five years; and while she was employed in the manner just described, her first child, four years of age, was sitting in a low chair, playing with a doll, which not only had softening of the brain, but softening of every portion of its anatomy--for it was a rag doll. But the doll, treasure as it was, notwithstanding its flat face (for rags do not admit of the formation of features of particular shape and beauty), was not the only object of the child's attention. She had that day been invested with a pair of new red socks, and Little Vanity was now holding out her little legs as straight as she could, and calling her mother's attention for the hundredth time to her flaming red treasures. Mrs. Hart knelt before the child, and admired the socks with the most outrageously-exaggerated turns of speech, and pulled them up tight, to her child's infinite delight and contentment. Then the mother began to prattle upon the subject nearest to her heart, and began to speak also, for the hundredth time, about the little brother--for Mrs. Hart had settled that "her second," as Jim Podmore had expressed it, was to be a boy--whom Rosy presently would have to play with. "And you'll love him very much, Rosy, won't you?" asked the mother. "Yes, very, very much." Indeed, Rosy used a great many more "verys" than two, and quite ingenuously, be it stated. But Rosy had a strong desire to be enlightened upon a certain point, and she seized the present favourable opportunity. She had heard a great deal about this little brother whom she was to love and play with, but she was puzzled to know where the little stranger was to come from. Now was the time to obtain the information. "Mother," asked the inquisitive little girl, "when will Bunny come?" "Bunny," it must be explained, was the fanciful title by which Rosy had already christened the expected stranger. "Next week, Rosy," answered the happy mother; "almost sure next week. Ain't you glad?" "Yes, I'm very, very glad." (Again a redundancy of "verys" which must be left to the imagination.) "But, mother, who'll bring Bunny here?" "Who'll bring him, Rosy? Why the doctor, to be sure."