"Thank you. The sympathy of all of you is much to me, more than you think." He paused adding slowly: "He may be fuller of life, Fancy, where he is now." She went her way, strangely comforted. Her time was approaching. Soon she must remain at home, awaiting her ordeal. She confronted that with the courage which is so often the attribute of physically frail women. The month before the wonderful event would be happily occupied in making the _layette_ or such of it as Mrs. Yellam couldn't provide; and Fancy had in mind the lining and trimming of a baby-basket fit for a tiny prince. She intended to embroider a broad blue riband with this legend: "To my little son." She made absolutely certain that the child would be a son. Already she had envisaged his life from the cradle to the grave. She wouldn't allow him to play too rough games, but he must be a _Man_; she shrank from what he would have to go through before he attained his sire's stature; she rehearsed a prayer suitable for babbling lips; she arrayed him in knickerbockers and despatched him to school, with many injunctions not to play truant, or pull the hair of small girls, or be pert to his teacher. Of course, he would be just such a son to her as Alfred was to his mother. She went so far in mental vagabondage as to choose a wife for him, a very practical young woman with a reassuring physique, quite unlike herself. Being his father's son, every inch of him, it was certain that he would have "affairs" with other young women before he chose the "One and Only." Fancy meant to deal faithfully with such flirtations. One of them would nearly capture the youth. He would be saved from a too audacious baggage by his mother! She hoped that he would not be too good, but full of fun, like Mr. Edward. He would be a carrier, because all wars would be over and done with after this war. These were her day-dreams. At night, she was not so happy. At night she thought much of Mrs. Yellam. That troubled face formed itself in the dark, mutely entreating comfort and counsel which Fancy could not evoke out of her eagerness to help a sorely-stricken creature. Why did Mrs. Yellam borrow trouble? Why did she believe that God had forsaken her? What a terrible notion this of Satan supreme and triumphant in Nether-Applewhite! But she had faith in God's mercy. He would lift this black cloud from a poor old woman's heart.