"What have I got here? You may well ask, mother. Something pretty, I can tell you, though I did pick it up by the roadside."
"But what is it? A baby! Picked it up by the roadside! My goodness! Where?"
"Under them old thorns opposite Carsham House."
"But, John, you're safe yourself, my lad? You wasn't out in the storm?"
"I was, though. Feel my coat—and so was this poor little mite, afore I got hold of her."
Bending his head as usual under the low doorway, John came with his burden into the brightly lighted kitchen, and dropped his parcel and stick with a sigh of relief on the well-scrubbed table. Then he put up his foot on a stool, and gently lowered the child to his knee, folding back the corner of shawl which had sheltered her face.
"There, wake up, Lily; sit up and look about you, little one," he said.
"Well, I never! But what a pretty child! Left by the roadside! Polly, did you ever hear the like?" cried his mother in bewilderment.
John lifted his flushed face, in which the colour deepened a little. "I beg your pardon, Miss Alfrick—didn't see you."
Whatever Mrs. Bland may have thought, the village considered John's manners very good.