The delicate question how she was to treat her uncle, he settled generously.  Farmer Blaize should come up to Raynham when he would:  Lucy must visit him at least three times a week.  He had Farmer Blaize and Mrs. Berry to study, and really excellent Aphorisms sprang from the plain human bases this natural couple presented.

“It will do us no harm,” he thought, “some of the honest blood of the soil in our veins.”  And he was content in musing on the parentage of the little cradled boy.  A common sight for those who had the entry to the library was the baronet cherishing the hand of his daughter-in-law.

So Richard was crossing the sea, and hearts at Raynham were beating quicker measures as the minutes progressed.  That night he would be with them.  Sir Austin gave Lucy a longer, warmer salute when she came down to breakfast in the morning.  Mrs. Berry waxed thrice amorous.  “It’s your second bridals, ye sweet livin’ widow!” she said.  “Thanks be the Lord! it’s the same man too! and a baby over the bed-post,” she appended seriously.

“Strange,” Berry declared it to be, “strange I feel none o’ this to my Berry now.  All my feelin’s o’ love seem t’ave gone into you two sweet chicks.”

In fact, the faithless male Berry complained of being treated badly, and affected a superb jealousy of the baby; but the good dame told him that if he suffered at all he suffered his due.  Berry’s position was decidedly uncomfortable.  It could not be concealed from the lower household that he had a wife in the establishment, and for the complications this gave rise to, his wife would not legitimately console him.  Lucy did intercede, but Mrs. Berry, was obdurate.  She averred she would not give up the child till he was weaned.  “Then, perhaps,” she said prospectively.  “You see I ain’t so soft as you thought for.”

“You’re a very unkind, vindictive old woman,” said Lucy.

“Belike I am,” Mrs. Berry was proud to agree.  We like a new character, now and then.  Berry had delayed too long.

Were it not notorious that the straightlaced prudish dare not listen to, the natural chaste, certain things Mrs. Berry thought it advisable to impart to the young wife with regard to Berry’s infidelity, and the charity women should have toward sinful men, might here be reproduced.  Enough that she thought proper to broach the matter, and cite her own Christian sentiments, now that she was indifferent in some degree.

Oily calm is on the sea.  At Raynham they look up at the sky and speculate that Richard is approaching fairly speeded.  He comes to throw himself on his darling’s mercy.  Lucy irradiated over forest and sea, tempest and peace—­to her the hero comes humbly.  Great is that day when we see our folly!  Ripton and he were the friends of old.  Richard encouraged him to talk of the two he could be eloquent on, and Ripton, whose secret vanity was in his powers of speech, never tired of enumerating Lucy’s virtues, and the peculiar attributes of the baby.