'Let me carry
the baby for you,' says she, a taking it from me. 'You must be tired.'
"All the way she kept looking at it, and saying how pretty it was, and
what beautiful long eyelashes it had, which went against me at the time,
my daughter, for I knowed it was like its mother.
"The clergyman was a pleasing young gentleman of a genteel appearance,
with a great deal to say for himself in the way of religion, as was
right, it being his business. 'Name this child,' says he, and she gives
a start that nobody sees but myself. So, thinking that the child being
likely to die, there was no loss in obliging the gentlefolk, says I,
looking down into the book as if I could read, 'Any name the lady thinks
suitable for the poor tinker's child;' and says she, the colour coming
up into her face, 'Call him Christian, for he shall be one.' So he was
named Christian, a name to give no manner of displeasure to myself or to
my family; it having been that of my husband's father, who was
unfortunate in a matter of horse-stealing, and died across the water."
"What did _she_ want with naming the baby, mother?" asked Sybil.
"I comes to that, my daughter, I comes to that, though it's hard to
speak of.
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