I was that restless I couldn't keep still, and so I says to Miss Jane, 'I'm goin' to the beach with Meg and watch the ships go by; that's the only thing that'll quiet my nerves.

They're never in a hurry with everybody punchin' and haulin' them.' Not that there's anybody doin' that to me, 'cept like it is to-day when I'm waitin' for my blessed baby to come back to me.

Two years, doctor--two whole years since I had my arms round her.

Wouldn't ye think I'd be nigh crazy ?" "She's too big for your arms now, Martha," laughed the doctor, gathering up his reins.

"She's a woman--seventeen, isn't she ?" "Seventeen and three months, come the fourteenth of next July.