"That's queer, to be sure, when you're so fond of lilies," said Mary Alfrick, and her words brought a smile to John's grave face.
"There's a lot yet as I don't understand," began Mrs. Randal, and poor little Lily seemed to be of the same opinion, for she was tired now of looking at the strange faces, and began again to remember that she was hungry. Would they never have done talking? perhaps she thought. Anyhow, she turned suddenly towards John, looked up into his face, and then laid her head against his coat and began to cry and sob piteously.
"I say, mother, she's hungry," said John, with great concern.
"To be sure she is, poor lamb. Here, I'll sit by the fire and you put her in my lap, and Polly'll warm some milk, and you just go straight away and change your clothes, John. I ain't going to have you sit down to supper like a soaked sponge!"
John and his mother sat up late that night after Mary was gone home, and the child, warmed, dried, and fed, had fallen fast asleep on the old sofa in the corner. Mrs. Randal was more convinced than ever that she was a lady's child. John could not yet bring himself to believe that the poor woman in the train had told him a string of lies. Somebody might have given her the flannel frock, he said. The locket seemed more puzzling. It was engraved in front with the letter L, and inside the glass at the back there was a tiny curl of dark hair. There was no other mark about the child by which she could be identified.
John's mother was half unwilling that he should carry out the plan he had made, to search the neighbourhood next day for the woman who had disappeared.
"The child's better off with us than with her, John," she said.
"You wouldn't say so if you was her mother," John answered, rather shortly.
"Maybe I wouldn't; but you mark my words, that woman's no more her mother than I am. There's something wrong, and it was a kind Providence that brought you along the road this evening, John."
"Well—I don't know, I'm sure," he growled out thoughtfully.