“Nay, now, ma’am, you must hear me to the end,” cried Caines, bursting into a guffaw; while Dick, looking somewhat conscience-stricken, patted his mother’s hand and besought her in a loud whisper not to take on.

“Lard bless ‘ee, that weren’t all!” exclaimed Billy.  “You should ha’ heerd the chap a-ravin’ about her little hands, and her darlin’ little feet, and I don’t know what all.  ‘And what colour mid her hair be?’ I axed him arter a bit, when he’d a-told me everythink else he could call to mind.  ‘I s’pose her hair be fair?’ ‘I s’pose so,’ says he, lookin’ a bit queer.  ‘Why, don’t ye know?’ says I.  ’D’ye mean to say ye’ve forgot the colour?’ ‘Why,’ says he, ’to tell ’ee the truth, mate, she hadn’t much hair o’ any kind when last I did see her.’  ‘Bless us!’ says I.  ‘What be talkin’ on?  Ye haven’t been and took up wi’ a bald wold maid?’ ‘She bain’t so very old,’ says he, and he did pull blanket up o’er his mouth so as I shouldn’t see en laughin’!”

Here the hero of the tale startled his mother by suddenly exploding, and she turned upon him indignantly.

“I do really think as we’ve a-had enough o’ this here nonsense.  I can’t make head or tail on’t.  You and your friend do seem to be a-keepin’ up a regular charm, and I can’t make out no sense in it.”

“I be very nigh done now, missis,” cried Caines jubilantly; “there be but a little bit more.  I did sit and stare at en when he did say his sweetheart hadn’t no hair, and at last I did ax en the question straight out, ‘How old mid she be when you did last see her?’ ’About two months,’ says he.  Ho, ho, ho!  ‘About two months!’ Yes, I’ve a-been away from England a good bit, an’ when I left her she hadn’t a hair on her head, nor yet a tooth in her mouth.’  And the two of us did laugh and laugh till we did very nigh bust our bandages.”

“’Twas the little maid I did mean,” explained Dick, as his mother still stared gapingly from one to the other. “’Twas my little maid as I was a-thinkin’ on when I did lie on that there wold stretcher what I did think I should never leave again.  I did think o’ she and wonder what ‘ud become o’ she if doctor couldn’t make a job o’ me.  Come here, Tilly.  You be daddy’s little sweetheart, bain’t ye?”

The child ran to him, and climbed upon his knee, and he passed his hand proudly through her mass of yellow curls.

“See here, mate; plenty o’ hair here now.”

He gathered up the thick locks half absently, twisting them clumsily into a kind of knot, and, throwing back his head, surveyed her pensively for a moment; then he kissed her just at the nape of the neck, and let the curls drop again with a sigh.

Mrs. Baverstock’s beady eyes became momentarily dim; she did not possess by nature a very large amount of intuition, but love is a wonderful sharpener of wits.

“Dear, yes,” she said.  “She be the very pictur’ of her mother.”  Then, suddenly bursting out laughing and clapping her hands together, “So that were the girl ye left behind ye!”