“Village children, Austin!” repeated his wife looking round at him; “do you really mean to say that you don’t recognise the child?”
“Certainly not, my dear; I never saw it before to my knowledge.”
“Why, of course it’s the gypsy child we saw yesterday. And now you see I was right.”
“What an awful thing!” exclaimed Mr Vallance. He sat down suddenly on the handle of a wheel-barrow close by, in utter dejection. “Then they’ve left it here on purpose!”
“Of course they have,” said Mrs Vallance; “and you see I was right, don’t you?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said the vicar getting up again, “by being right. Everything’s as wrong as it can be, I should say.”
“I mean, that she doesn’t belong to those gypsies. I was sure of it.”
“Why not?” asked her husband helplessly.
“Because no mother would have given up a darling like this—she would have died first.”
Mrs Vallance had taken the child on her knee while she was speaking and opened the old shawl: baby seemed to like her new position, she leaned her curly head back, stretched out her limbs easily, and gazed gravely up at the distracted vicar.