The positions of husband and wife were now reversed. It was Reuben who sulked and gloomed, looking at the baby askance, while Naomi moved in a daydream of peace and rapture and desire satisfied. She was too happy to care much about her husband\'s disappointment. She would never have believed it if anyone had told her in the first weeks of her marriage that she could have a joy and not mind if he did not share it, a child and not fret if he did not love it. But now her child sufficed her, or rather she had learned the lesson of wives, to suffice herself, and could love and rejoice without a comrade.

She had forgotten the Arabellas and Mariannas of the Keepsake, and the baby was called Fanny after Naomi\'s own mother, whom she dimly remembered. Fanny became the centre of Naomi\'s life; she was not as healthy as the other children, and her little pains and illnesses were all so many cords drawing her closer to her mother\'s heart. Though she required twice as much attention as the boys, Naomi never fretted or grew weary, as she had sometimes done in the service of the other little ones—on the contrary, she bloomed into a new beauty, and recovered the youthfulness she had begun to lose.

Strange to say, Harry, who had paid little attention to the earlier babies, seemed drawn to this one. He would hang round Naomi when she had her in her lap, and sometimes gingerly put out a hand and stroke the child\'s limbs. Naomi could not bear that he should touch her; but he amused Fanny, so she tolerated him. He had fallen into the habit of many half-witted[Pg 92] people and occasionally made strange faces, which though repulsive to everyone else, filled Fanny with hilarious delight. Indeed they were the first thing she "noticed."

"Oh, the pretty baby! save the pretty baby!"—Harry would mutter and shriek, and he would wander about the house crying—"Save the pretty baby!" till Naomi declared that he gave her the shivers.

"Keep him out of the way, can\'t you, Backfield?" she said to her husband.

In Reuben\'s eyes Naomi was just as irritating and ridiculous as Harry. She made foolish clothes for Fanny, quite unfit for a child in her position—muslins and ribbon bows, little knitted shoes, which she was forever pulling off to kiss the baby\'s feet. She would seat her on some high big chair in which she lolled with grotesque importance, and would kneel before her and call her "Miss Fanny."

"There, Miss Fanny—see what a grand baby you are. Soon all the boys will be courting you—see if they don\'t. You shall always wear silk and muslins and sit on cushions, and you will always love your mother, won\'t you, dear little miss?"

Reuben was revolted—also a little hurt. It seemed to him that Naomi was neglecting the boys he was so proud of. Albert was............