“I don’t want to hear no sich thing,” retorted the old woman, querulously, but anxiously, too.  “I do know ’ee better nor to think you’d have any sich nonsensical notions; you as be a widow man, and have a-buried sich a lovin’ wife, what have a-left ’ee the darlingest little maid to keep.  Us do want no step-mothers; us do want all the love, the wold mother and the little maid.”

Dick’s face twitched, and his eyes clouded, but before he could answer, Private Billy Caines, who was not endowed with remarkably acute perceptions, began his narrative in a loud and merry voice.

“Him and me was knocked over the same day—­I shouldn’t wonder but what it was the same shell.  I couldn’t tell ’ee for sure about that, for I were hit all to flinders, and for a bit they thought I was done for.  But when I did get a bit better, and did begin to look about, I’m danged if the first thing I did see weren’t poor old Dick’s long white face, lyin’ there so solemn, wi’ his girt hollow black eyes, a-starin’ and a-starin’ straight i’ front of en.  I did use to watch en, and he did always look the same—­sorrowful and anxious, and one day I did call out to en, soft like, ‘What be thinkin’ on, man?  The us’al thing, I s’pose?’ He did scraggle his head a bit round on the pillow and squint back at me.  ‘What mid that be?’ says he.  ‘Why,’ says I, ’the girl I left behind me!’ ‘Be that what you be a-thinkin’ on?’ says he.  ‘O’ course,’ says I; ‘what else?’ ‘What else, indeed?’ says he, and he did sigh same as if he had a bellows inside of en.”

“Did he actually say he was a-thinkin’ about soom maid?” interrupted Mrs. Baverstock wrathfully.

“Bide a bit,” retorted Private Caines, wagging his head portentously; “I be a-tellin’ the tale so quick as I can.  Well, I did get tired o’ watchin’ en layin’ there, starin’ and sighin’, so I did begin to tell en about somebody I did think a deal on then, but have a-changed my mind about now; and he did listen and laugh a bit, but I could see he were a-thinkin’ about his own sweetheart all the time.  So says I at last, ‘I d’ ‘low she be a vitty maid?’ ‘Who?’ says he, scraggling round again.  ‘The girl ye left behind ye,’ says I.  ‘Ah, to be sure,’ says he.  ‘Yes, she be a reg’lar pictur.’  ’Well, you mid tell us a bit about her,’ says I; ’I’ve a-told ’ee all about my maid.  Blue eyes, I s’pose?’ Seein’ as his own be so black as sloes, I reckoned ’twould come naitral to en to take up wi’ a fair maid.  ‘Yes,’ says he, ’so blue as the sky at home on a June day!’ I made a good shot, I told en.  ‘A good bit o’ colour, I d’ ‘low!’ (Him bein’ a sallow man, d’ye see.) ‘A pair o’ cheeks like roses,’ he says; ’and a little neck as white—­as the snow—­nay, that’s too cold—­’tis more like the white of a white flower, bless her!’”

Mrs. Baverstock threw herself back in her chair and snorted.

“This here be a pretty kind o’ story to tell your mother the very first day as you do come home,” she said, in trembling tones.  “And the poor, innocent child a-sittin’ there a-listenin’ to every word.”