"It is small, that is why I can carry him. The best goods are wrapped in the smallest parcels." "The child looks very delicate--ill, I should say." "Oh, no! it has been ill, but is much, much better now. How could even a strong child stand all that my precious one has had to go through without suffering? But that is over now. Now at length we shall have rest and happiness, baby and me, in each other." Then catching the child to her heart, she rocked herself, and with tears of love flowing, sang-- "Thou art my sceptre, crown and all." She laid the child again on her lap and sat looking at it admiringly in the rosy light of the fire that suffused it. As the flames had given to her cheek a fictitious color, so did they now give to the infant a glow as of health that it did not actually possess. "You must be tired," said Iver. "I am tired; see how my limbs shake. That is why my baby trembles; but as for my arms, they are past tiredness, they are just one dead ache from the shoulder to the wrist." "Are you hungry, Matabel?" "Oh, no! All I want is rest, rest. I am weary." Presently she asked, "Where is father?" "He is away. Gone to the Dye House to see a cow that is bad. They sent for him, to have his opinion. Father is thought a great authority on cows." "And Polly?" "Oh! Polly," laughed Iver, "she's bundled off. Father has borne it like a philosopher. I believe in his heart he is rather pleased that I should have turned her neck and crop off the premises. It was high time. She had mastered the old man, and could make him do what she pleased." "Whom have you got in her place?" "Julia Caesar. She was sent away from the Colpuses for drawing the beer too freely. Well, here she can draw it whenever there are men who ask for drink, so she will be in her proper element. But she is only a stop gap. I engaged her because there really was for the moment no one else available, but she goes as soon as we can find a better." "Will you take me?" asked Mehetabel, with a smile, and with some confidence that she would be gladly accepted. "We shall see--there is another place for you, Matabel," said Iver. "Now let us talk of something else. Was it not a piece of rare good luck that I was stuck on the jury? Do you know, I believe all would have gone wrong but for me. I put my foot down and said, 'Not guilty,' and would not budge. The rest were almost all inclined to give against you, Matabel, but there was a fellow with a wist in his stupid noddle against capital punishment. He was just as resolute as I was, and between us, we worked the rest round to our way of thinking. But I should like to know the truth about it all, for it is marvellous to me." "There is nothing for me to say, Iver," answered Matabel, "but that some words I uttered made Jonas spring back, and neither he nor I knew that there was a kiln behind, it was so overgrown with brambles, and he fell down that." "And you laughed."