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“What!” saith she, “thou hast ta’en it on thyself to offer my bread and meat to a good-for-naught hussy as ne’er had a civil word for any o’ us! Thou hast given her bed-room under my roof without so much as ‘by your leave!’ Thou godless hussy, thou! Where be th’ jade? I say, where be she? Where be she?”

“Where thou shalt not come at her in thy present humor, mother,” saith the lass, standing with one arm reached out across the door-way, like as though in verity she had been the mother and her dam a naughty child.

“How? Dost word me? dost word me?” saith my wife. “How? dost take any stray cat to kitten in my house an’ then word me too?”–so saith she.

Then saith th’ lass, “Well can I understand,” saith she, “how, if thou canst speak i’ this fashion o’ thy sister’s child, thou canst also speak to thy own as sure no mother e’er spoke ere this.” Then, changing all suddenly her tone, and dropping down her arm from the door, “Go an thou like,” saith she, “to abuse the poor creature who hath come to ask thy help in time o’ trouble; but just so surely as thou dost turn her out o’ door to lie i’ th’ straw like any common callet, just so sure do I follow her, to fare as she fares, and all the village shall know what thou hast done.”

Then for some minutes did they twain stand and gaze upon one another, and at last down flumps my wife into a chair, as though she would break it in pieces for very rage; but being waxed sulky, and her own wrath cowed, as ’twere, by her daughter’s more righteous wrath, she saith nothing more of ‘t, good or bad.

In three weeks’ time th’ child is born, and as sound and as pretty a babe as e’er I clapt eyes on, and Keren a-dangling of him as natural as though she herself had been a mother, time and again.

“What say’st thou now, lass?” quoth she. “Wilt trust Keren after this?”

“Is he sound, verily?” saith the poor little dame, looking shyly upon him.

“Never a spot so big as the splash on a guinea-flower!” saith Keren. “And ears like sea-shells.”

So, after a-kissing of them both, and th’ top o’ th’ babe’s head (as ’twas permitted me to do), I steals out and leaves them together.

Well, ne’er saw thou a child grow as did that child. Meseemed he sprouted like corn after a rain; and in five months a was waxed so strong a could stand on ‘s feet a-holding to his mother’s kirtle. But, strange to say or not, as thou wilt have ‘t, he did seem to love Keren more than he did th’ mother that bore him, a-crying for her did she but so much as turn her back, and not sleeping unless that she would croon his lullabies to him. Mayhap it was because her strong arms and round bosom made a more cosey nest for him than did th’ breast and arms o’ his little dam; but so was ‘t, and nearly all o’ her time did th’ lass give to him. Neither did it seem to rouse aught o’ jealousy in Ruth’s heart: she was too busy a-looking for th’ return o’ ‘s father to bother her pretty pate o’ermuch concerning him. And she would sit and talk o’ Robin, and o’ Robin’s goodness, and o’ Robin’s sweet ways and words and doings, until I thought sometimes my poor lass’s heart would just break within her, if ‘t had not been broken already these two years. And one day, as she kneels beside th’ cradle–Ruth having gone to see her folks for th’ day–I come in unknown to her, and stand to watch th’ pretty sight. There kneels she, and Ruth’s red shawl o’er her head to please th’ child (Keren ne’er had any bright colors o’ her own those days)–there kneels she, I say, beside the cradle, and kittles him with her nimble fingers, and digs him i’ th’ ribs after a fashion that would sure ‘a’ run me crazy (though it hath ne’er yet been proven what a young babe cannot endure at the hands o’ women), and punches and pokes and worries him, for all th’ world like a kitten worrying a flower. And he, lying on his back, kicks with both feet at her face, and winds all his hands in her long hair, and laughs, and bubbles, and makes merry, after the fashion o’ a spring stream among many stones. And by-and-by a change falls o’er her, and she waxes very solemn, and sits down on th’ floor by th’ edge o’ th’ cradle, with one arm upon ‘t and her head on her hand, and she looks at the babe. In vain doth he clutch at her hair and at her kerchief, and reach, with pretty broken murmurings, as of water through crowding roots, after his little bare toes: never so much as a motion makes she towards him. But at last up gets she to her knees, and takes him fiercely into her strong hands, and holds him off at arm’s-length, looking at him; and she saith in a deep voice (such as I had not heard her use for two years), saith she, “For that thou art not mine,” saith she, “I hate thee; but–” and here came a change o’er all her face and voice and manner, like as when April doth suddenly wake in the midst o’ a wintry day in springtide–“but,” saith she, “for that thou art his, I love thee!” And she took him to her bosom, and bowed down her head over him so that he was hidden all in her long hair; but the bright shawl covered it, so that, what with her stooping and the hiding of her tresses, a body coming in suddenly at the door might ‘a’ easily mistaken her for Ruth.