Jed Curry stared down at his new-born son,before meeting the eyes of his wife, who was smiling tiredly at him. His eyes began to fill with tears, his heart so full it almost hurt. He turned as his daughter came running in with her aunt on her heels. Emily smiled at them both, her own eyes bright. "I couldn't keep her away any longer, but Mrs Henderson told us it was fine to come and see the baby."

She gazed down at the boy, her face softening into absolute joy as Lizzie almost bouncing in excitement, peered round to stare at her brother and laughed in delight. "Oh Ma, he's real funny looking, he looks like a peanut!"

"Lizzie!" Jed said in remonstration, but his wife only shook her head and looked down at their son, her face creasing in amusement. "Well, maybe you're right, but I imagine you weren't much prettier when you were born."

Jed laughed himself then, remembering the squawking, red faced, wrinkly thing his daughter had been on first sight. He'd thought she was most beautiful thing he'd ever seen, but Heyes had been less than complimentary. "She's right sweetheart, I ain't gonna repeat what your Uncle Heyes said when he first saw you. Now, your Ma needs to sleep and we gotta go tell all the other folks outside that everything's fine- before they all burst in."

Lizzie tugging her Aunt's towards the door nodded happily. "Baggsy, we get to tell Uncle Heyes, Victoria and Caroline. I wanna see Caroline's face when she finds out I got a brother too."

Jed smiling shook his head as his little tornado exited, his eyes straying back to his son. He kissed his wife's forehead softly as her eyes began to close. He gently took the baby from her and placed him carefully into the Moses basket. "Welcome to the world, Thaddeus Curry."