It happened in this way.  Pretty little Dot gave good John Perrybingle cause for anxiety by her actions, and the honest carrier, disturbed and misled, felt that he had reason to doubt her love for him, which almost broke his honest, faithful heart.  While he was worrying over this, and over her, his little wife was merely shielding a secret belonging to Edward Plummer, Bertha’s brother, who had just come back, after many year’s absence in the golden South Americas.

So unaccustomed was Dot to keeping a secret that it caused her to act very strangely, and give her husband reason to misjudge her, which almost broke her loving little heart.  All of which trouble Tilly Slowboy did not understand, but was deeply affected by it, and when she found her mistress alone, sobbing piteously, was quite horrified, exclaiming: 

“Ow, if you please, don’t!  It’s enough to dead and bury the baby, so it is, if you please!”

“Will you bring him sometimes, to see his father, Tilly?” inquired her mistress, drying her eyes; “when I can’t live here, and have gone to my old home?”

“Ow, if you please, don’t!” cried Tilly, throwing back her head and bursting out into a howl—­she looked at the moment uncommonly like Boxer—­“Ow, if you please, don’t!  Ow, what has everybody been and gone and done with everybody, making everybody else so wretched.  Ow-w-w-w!”

The soft-hearted Slowboy trailed off at this juncture, into such a deplorable howl, the more tremendous from its long suppression, that she must infallibly have wakened the baby and frightened him into something serious (probably convulsions) if her attention had not been forcibly diverted from her misery for a moment, after which she stood for some time silent, with her mouth wide open; and then, posting off to the bed on which the baby lay asleep, danced in a weird, Saint Vitus manner, on the floor, and at the same time rummaged with her face and head among the bedclothes, apparently deriving much relief from those extraordinary operations.

Fortunately for all concerned in the little domestic drama, before a crisis had been reached, Edward Plummer revealed his secret, and his reasons for having been obliged to keep it.  This cleared up the mystery concerning Mrs. Dot’s conduct, proving her to be the same loyal, loving little wife she always was:  to the exquisite satisfaction of the honest carrier, his family and friends, and last but not least, Miss Slowboy, who wept copiously for joy, and wishing to include her young charge in the general interchange of congratulations, handed round the baby to everybody in succession, as if it were something to eat or drink.