Cy's tellin' himself fairy yarns and he hopes he believes 'em.

Man alive! can't you SEE?
Ain't he gettin' more foolish over the young one every day?
Don't she boss him round like the overseer on a cranberry swamp?
Don't he look more contented than he has sence he got off the cars?
I tell you, Bailey, that child fills a place in Whit's life that's been runnin' to seed and needed weedin'.

Nothin' could fill it better--unless 'twas a nice wife." "WIFE! Oh, DO be still! I believe you're woman-struck and at an age when it hadn't ought to be catchin' no more'n whoopin' cough." Mr.Bangs and the town clerk were the only ones, except Captain Cy, who knew the whole truth concerning the little girl.

Not that the child's arrival wasn't noted and vigorously discussed by a large portion of the townspeople.

Emily had not been in the Whittaker house two days before Angeline Phinney called, hot on the trail of gossip and sensation.