She refused to put so much as a piece of thread into a needle in
anticipation of her confinement and would have been absolutely
unprepared, if her neighbours had not been better judges of her condition
than she was, and got things ready without telling her anything about it.
Perhaps she feared Nemesis, though assuredly she knew not who or what
Nemesis was; perhaps she feared the doctor had made a mistake and she
should be laughed at; from whatever cause, however, her refusal to
recognise the obvious arose, she certainly refused to recognise it, until
one snowy night in January the doctor was sent for with all urgent speed
across the rough country roads. When he arrived he found two patients,
not one, in need of his assistance, for a boy had been born who was in
due time christened George, in honour of his then reigning majesty.
To the best of my belief George Pontifex got the greater part of his
nature from this obstinate old lady, his mother--a mother who though she
loved no one else in the world except her husband (and him only after a
fashion) was most tenderly attached to the unexpected child of her old
age; nevertheless she showed it little.
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