But nobody turned up, and Miss Chadwick, who had had to guess at the baby's age and requirements, and had mixed too strong a bottle, spent a wakeful night patting her small guest on the back and endeavouring to still her wails. Next morning Miss Todd reported the matter at the police station, enquiries were made, and it was ascertained that a girl answering to the description given had been in the company of a band of hawkers, but had disappeared and left no trace of her whereabouts. The baby was not hers, but belonged to a woman who had just been arrested on a serious charge and taken to Glenbury jail; the hawkers with whom she had associated disclaimed all responsibility for the child.
"The only thing to be done is to send it to the Union," said the police sergeant.
But by that time the school in general, and Diana in particular, had fallen in love with the poor little baby. They raged at the idea of sending it to the workhouse. They had borrowed clothes for it; and, nicely bathed and dressed and recovered from its fit of indigestion, it looked a sweet thing, and was ready to make friends with anybody and everybody.
"Bless her, she shan't go the workhouse!" declared Diana, kissing the small fist that clung round her finger.
There was a wild idea among the girls that the foundling might be kept as a "school baby".
"We're taught gardening, and poultry-keeping, and bee-keeping," said Wendy quite seriously, "so why not the care of children? We could learn to bathe her, and mix her bottle, and do heaps of things for her."
Miss Todd, however, thought otherwise. Theoretical hygiene of infants was all very well as part of the curriculum, but the practical side of it was disturbing to the school. Miss Chadwick had other duties besides that of nursing a baby. Rows of plants needed attention, and young chickens claimed her care.
"If the mother gets a heavy sentence," said Miss Todd, "I think the child would be received into a 'Home for Destitute Children'. In the meantime——"
"Not the workhouse!" pleaded Diana. "Isn't there anybody in the village who'd take her in?"
"Mrs. Jones would have her, but she would charge twelve and sixpence a week; nobody will take in a baby for less now."