The Carrier stood looking after him until he was smaller in the distance than his horse’s flowers and favours near at hand; and then, with a deep sigh, went strolling like a restless, broken man, among some neighbouring elms; unwilling to return until the clock was on the eve of striking. His little wife, being left alone, sobbed piteously; but often dried her eyes and checked herself, to say how good he was, how excellent he was! and once or twice she laughed; so heartily, triumphantly, and incoherently (still crying all the time), that Tilly was quite horrified. ‘Ow if you please don’t!’ said Tilly. ‘It’s enough to dead and bury the Baby, so it is if you please.’ ‘Will you bring him sometimes, to see his father, Tilly,’ inquired her mistress, drying her eyes; ‘when I can’t live here, and have gone to my old home?’ ‘Ow if you please don’t!’ cried Tilly, throwing back her head, and bursting out into a howl—she looked at the moment uncommonly like Boxer. ‘Ow if you please don’t! Ow, what has everybody gone and been and done with everybody, making everybody else so wretched! Ow-w-w-w!’ The soft-hearted Slowboy trailed off at this juncture, into such a deplorable howl, the more tremendous from its long suppression, that she must infallibly have awakened the Baby, and frightened him into something serious (probably convulsions), if her eyes had not encountered Caleb Plummer, leading in his daughter. This spectacle restoring her to a sense of the proprieties, she stood for some few moments silent, with her mouth wide open; and then, posting off to the bed on which the Baby lay asleep, danced in a weird, Saint Vitus manner on the floor, and at the same time rummaged with her face and head among the bedclothes, apparently deriving much relief from those extraordinary operations. ‘Mary!’ said Bertha. ‘Not at the marriage!’ ‘I told her you would not be there, mum,’ whispered Caleb. ‘I heard as much last night. But bless you,’ said the little man, taking her tenderly by both hands, ‘I don’t care for what they say. I don’t believe them. There an’t much of me, but that little should be torn to pieces sooner than I’d trust a word against you!’ He put his arms about her and hugged her, as a child might have hugged one of his own dolls.