Then he went on: "Are those wheels upon the road, Bertha ?", cried Dot.

"You've a quick ear, Bertha--And now you hear them stopping at the garden gate! And now you hear a step outside the door--the same step, Bertha, is it not--And now--" Dot uttered a wild cry of uncontrollable delight, and running up to Caleb put her hand upon his eyes, as a young man rushed into the room, and, flinging away his hat into the air, came sweeping down upon them.
"Is it over ?" cried Dot.
"Yes!" "Happily over ?" "Yes!" "Do you recollect the voice, dear Caleb?
Did you ever hear the like of it before ?" cried Dot.
"If my boy Edward in the Golden South Americas was alive--" cried Caleb, trembling.
"He is alive!" shrieked Dot, removing her hands from his eyes and clapping them in ecstasy; "look at him! See where he stands before you, healthy and strong! Your own dear son! Your own dear, living, loving brother, Bertha!" All honor to the little creature for her transports! All honor to her tears and laughter, when the three were locked in one another's arms! All honor to the heartiness with which she met the sunburnt, sailor-fellow, with his dark, streaming hair, halfway, and never turned her rosy little mouth aside, but suffered him to kiss it freely, and to press her to his bounding heart! "Now tell him (John) all, Edward," sobbed Dot, "and don't spare me, for nothing shall make me spare myself in his eyes ever again." "I was the man," said Edward.
"And you could steal disguised into the home of your old friend," rejoined the carrier...
"But I had a passion for her." "You!" "I had," rejoined the other, "and she returned it--I heard twenty miles away that she was false to me--I had no mind to reproach her but to see for myself." Once more Richard's voice faltered, and again it rang clear, this time in Dot's tones: "But when she knew that Edward was alive, John, and had come back--and when she--that's me, John--told him all--and how his sweetheart had believed him to be dead, and how she had been over-persuaded by her mother into a marriage--and when she--that's me again, John--told him they were not married, though close upon it--and when he went nearly mad for joy to hear it--then she--that's me again--said she would go and sound his sweetheart--and she did--and they were married an hour ago!--John, an hour ago! And here's the bride! And Gruff and Tackleton may die a bachelor! And I'm a happy little woman, May, God bless you!" Little woman, how she sobbed! John Perrybingle would have caught her in his arms.

But no; she wouldn't let him.
"Don't love me yet, please, John! Not for a long time yet! No--keep there, please, John! When I laugh at you, as I sometimes do, John, and call you clumsy, and a dear old goose, and names of that sort, it's because I love you, John, so well.

And when I speak of people being middle-aged and steady, John, and pretend that we are a humdrum couple, going on in a jog-trot sort of way, it's only because I'm such a silly little thing, John, that I like, sometimes, to act a kind of play with Baby, and all that, and make believe." She saw that he was coming, and stopped him again.

But she was very nearly too late.
"No, don't love me for another minute or two, if you please, John! When I first came home here I was half afraid I mighn't learn to love you every bit as well as I hoped and prayed I might--being so very young, John.