"Doctor, be quiet, or I will kiss you again. Give me my baby, my love.
Are you quite sure it is a boy?"

And in the adjoining drawing-room, where the whole family were waiting, I
could hear amid the sound of kisses, the delightful words, "It is a boy,
a fine boy."

My poor husband, who for twelve hours had not left me, overcome with
fatigue and emotion, was crying and laughing in one corner of the room.

"Come, nurse, swaddle him, quick now. No pins, confound it all, strings,
I will have strings. What? Give me the child, you don't understand
anything about it."

And the good doctor in the twinkling of an eye had dressed my child.

"He looks a Colonel, your boy. Put him into the cradle with . . . now
be calm, my dear patient . . . with a hot-water bottle to his feet.
Not too much fire, especially in the Colonel's room. Now, no more noise,
repose, and every one out of the way."

And as through the opening of the door which was just ajar, Aunt Ursula
whispered, "Doctor, let me come in; just to press her hand, doctor."

"Confound it! every one must be off; silence and quiet are absolutely
necessary." They all left.

"Octave," continued the doctor, "come and kiss your wife now, and make an
end of it. Good little woman, she has been very brave . . . .
Octave, come and kiss your wife, and be quick about it if you don't want