He seem'd as though he'd shake it off by a jerk on his
elbow, but she said quite low, 'For poor little Johnnie's sake,
Richard.' He did not move or speak again, and after looking in his
face for a minute, she turned away, swallowing deep in her throat.
She kissed th' sleeping babby as she passed, when I paid her. To
quieten th' gruff husband, and stop him if he rated her, I could na
help slipping another sixpence under th' loaf, and then we set off
again. Last look I had o' that woman she were quietly wiping her
eyes wi' the corner of her apron, as she went about her husband's
breakfast. But I shall know her in heaven."
He stopped to think of that long ago May morning, when he had
carried his grand-daughter under the distant hedgerows and beneath
the flowering sycamores.
"There's nought more to say, wench," said he to Margaret, as she
begged him to go on. "That night we reached Manchester, and I'd
found out that Jennings would be glad enough to give up babby to me,
so I took her home at once, and a blessing she's been to me."
They were all silent for a few minutes; each following out the
current of their thoughts.
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