That summer Naomi realised that she was going to have another child. She was sorry, for her maternal instincts were satisfied for the present, and she had begun to value her new-returned health. It would be hard to have to go back to bondage again.

However, there was no help for it. Reuben was overjoyed, and once more she slipped under his tyranny. This time she found it irksome, his watchfulness was a nuisance, his anxiety was absurd. However, she did not complain. She was too timid, and too fond of him.

"I hope it\'ll be a girl this time," she said one afternoon, when according to custom she was walking along Totease Lane, his arm under hers.

"A girl—— Oh, no! I want another boy."

"But we\'ve got a boy, Reuben. It would be nice to have a girl now."

"Why, liddle creature?"

"Oh, I justabout love baby girls. They\'re so sweet—and all their dresses and that.... Besides we don\'t want two boys."

To her surprise Reuben stopped in the road, and burst out laughing.

"Two boys!—not want two boys!—Why, we want ten boys! if I cud have twenty, I shudn\'t grumble."

"What nonsense you\'re talking, Backfield," said Naomi primly.

"I ?un\'t talking nonsense, I\'m talking sound sense. How am I to run the farm wudout boys? I want boys to help me work all that land. I\'m going to have the whole of Boarzell, as I\'ve told you a dunnamany times, and I\'ll want men wud me on it. So d?an\'t you go talking o\' girls. Wot use are girls?—none! They just spannel about, and then go off and get married."

"But a girl \'ud be useful in the house—she could help moth............