“Then aw hope he’s a prophet o’ eawt, feyther, an’ o’ th’ rest’ll come true in toime,” briskly interjected Bess; adding—“Coom, tay’s ready;” further appending for the information of their visitors—“Madam Clough sent the tay an’ sugar, an’ th’ big curran’-loaf, when hoo heeard as feyther had axed for a holiday fur the kirsenin’; an’ Mester Clough’s sen some yale [ale], an’ a thumpin’ piece o’ beef.” “Ay, lass; an, as we’n a’ready a foine kirsenin’ feast, we’n no change parson’s seven-shillin’ piece, but lay it oop fur th’ lad hissen.” But the christening feast did not proceed without sundry noisy demonstrations from Master Jabez. If, as Simon had once hinted, he was an angel in the house, he flapped his wings and blew his trumpet pretty noisily at times. “Eh, lass, aw wish Tum wur here neaw, to enjoy hisself wi’ us. Aw wonder what he’d say to see yo’ nursin’ a babby so bonnily?” Simon was munching a huge piece of currant-cake as he uttered this, after a meditative pause. A look of pain passed over Bessy’s face. She rarely mentioned the absent Tom, though he was seldom out of her thoughts. “Yea, an’ _aw_ wish he wur here!” she echoed with a sigh, the fountain of which was deep in her own breast. “Aw wonder where he is neaw.” “Feightin’, mebbe!” suggested her father. “Killed, mebbe!” was the fearful suggestion of her own heart, and she was silent for some time afterwards. But the feast proceeded merrily for all that, and no wonder, where Charity was president. And there was quite as happy a party under that humble roof in Skinners’ Yard as that assembled in the grand house at Ardwick, where Master Laurence Aspinall was handed about in his embroidered robes for the inspection of guests who cared very little about him, although they did present him with silver mugs, and spoons, and corals, and protest to his pale and exhausted mamma that he was the finest infant in Manchester. CHAPTER THE FOURTH. MISCHIEF. It was a time of distress at home and war abroad. Glory’s scarlet fever was as rife an epidemic in Manchester as elsewhere. The town bristled with bayonets; corps of volunteers in showy uniforms, on parade or exercise, with banners flying, dotted it like spots on a peacock’s tail; the music of drum and fife drowned the murmurs of discontented men, the groans of poverty-stricken women, and the cries of famishing children. All nostrums were prescribed for the evils of famine except a stoppage of the war. The rich made sacrifices for the poor; pastry was banished by common consent from the tables of the wealthy in order to cheapen flour; soup-kitchens were established for the poor, and in the midst of the general dearth the nineteenth century struggled into existence.