A second application, this to a decent-looking body who was sweeping out a particularly dingy chapel, met with no better success.
A third woman did know of someone whose child had died and who might, perhaps, be willing to care for a baby, but on looking for the street where the person was said to live, Miss Semaphore found that some mistake had been made in the address, and that no one knew of any such place. The people she asked made various suggestions as to where she should go, and she tried them all without result.
Discouraged by so many failures, tired and weak from want of food, the spirits of our poor Prudence sank to zero.
“What am I to do with her?” she asked, as if calling creation to witness her perplexity “Shall I find no one to take her?”
While in this disturbed frame of mind she walked meditatively onward, and stopped before a little newspaper and tobacco shop, reading the posters displayed outside, without understanding a word. Suddenly, amidst the tumult of her thoughts, she noticed that a pleasant-looking woman was sitting behind the counter reading and knitting. This stranger might help her. She entered, and having selected and paid for a Graphic, and read some remarks on the weather, said as if though an after-thought,
“By the way, do you know of any respectable woman that would take care of a baby?”
“Do you mean a nurse to live indoors, ma’am, or a person to take care of the child at her own home?”
“I mean someone who would take a baby to live with her, and show it every kindness.”
“That’s not so easy to get, ma’am, and I can’t say as I do know anyone I could recommend.” Then, with a sharp glance, “May I arsk if the child is your own?”
“Oh dear, no!” cried Miss Prudence hastily. “It is my sister.”