Tell me what it is, quick, for pity's sake.
Don't 'ee keep me waiting." He rose, and gently putting her into the chair he had been occupying, he handed her Lizzie's letter.

"That's the trouble, mother," he said; "it might have been worse--that's all I can say.

You must read it for yourself, it'd choke me to do so if I was to try," and he went away to the door and stood there gazing out at the sunny garden where the daffodils bowed gently before the soft breeze, and the crocuses opened their golden cups to the sun.

But he saw nothing, all his mind was given to his wife, and the letter she was reading, and to wondering how she would bear it, and what he could say to comfort her.
At last a long low cry reached him, and he turned hastily back into the kitchen; but, instead of seeing her white and shaken and weeping, as he was prepared to see her, the face that looked up to him was quivering with eagerness and love and joy.
"She's sending us her little one, father!" she gasped in a voice quavering with glad excitement.

"Lizzie's little girl, our own little grandchild! We shall have a child about the place again, something to love and work for.