He said nothing, but held the child towards her; it was only natural that she should doubt, being so unprepared, but a second glance would convince her. 'I thought,' she said, looking the baby over, with what in a less kind, gentle face, might have been quite a hard, critical manner, 'I thought for a minute'---- 'Well?' 'I was mistaken,' she said; 'of course I was mistaken.' And then she added to herself more than to him, 'It is not a bit like'---- 'Look again,' he said, 'look again; don't you see a likeness?' 'Likeness? Oh, I suppose it's the gypsy child up at Mrs Gray's, and you mean the likeness to the woman who came here that day she was left; but I don't remember enough of her to say. It's plain the child's a gypsy. What a swarthy skin, to be sure!' Why, where were her eyes? To Mr Robins it was little Edith over again. He wondered that all the village did not see it and cry out on him. But it was not likely that after this his confidence should go further, and just then the child began a little grumble, and he took her back hastily to Mrs Gray with a disappointed, crest-fallen feeling. Jane Sands was conscious that her reception of the baby had not been satisfactory, and she tried to make amends by little complimentary remarks, which annoyed him more than her indifference. 'A fine, strong child, and does Mrs Gray great credit.' 'It's a nice bright little thing, and I daresay will improve as it grows older.' She could not imagine why the organist grunted in such a surly way in reply to these remarks, for what on earth could it matter to him what anyone thought of a foundling, gypsy child? CHAPTER VII. Gray Taken to the Hospital--Bill and the Baby--Mrs Gray Home Again--Edith, Come Home! It was near the end of September that John Gray broke his leg. They were thrashing out a wheat-rick at Farmer Benson's, and somehow he tumbled from the top of the rick, and fell with his leg bent under him, and found that he could not stand when he tried to struggle up to his feet. They ran to tell 'his missus,' who came straight off from the washtub, with the soapsuds still about her skinny red elbows, catching up Zoe from the cradle as she passed, at sight of whom Gray, in spite of the pain and the deadly faintness that was dimming his eyes and clutching his breath, made an effort to chirrup and snap his fingers at the little one. 'It's his innerds as is hurted,' explained one of the bystanders, with that wonderful openness and way of making the worst of everything that is found in that class. 'The spine of his back most like,' said another, 'like poor Johnson, over to Stokeley, as never walked another step arter his fall.' 'Ay, he do look mortal bad! 'Tis a terrible bad job!'