He stood for a minute fingering the pink, spotted print of infantile simplicity of pattern, and listening to the quick click, click, of her needle as it flew in and out; but it was not till he had turned away and was half out of the kitchen, that she began a request that had been on the tip of her tongue all the time, but which she had not ventured to bring out while he stood at the table.
'I was going to ask—if you 'd no objection—seeing that they're no good to any one'——
Now it was coming out, and he turned with an encouraging smile:
'Well, what is it?'
'There are some old baby-clothes put away in a drawer up-stairs. They 're rough dried, and I've kept an eye on them, and took them out now and then to see as the moth didn't get in them'——
'Yes?'
'Well, sir—this baby that I'm working for is terrible short of clothes, and I thought I might take a few of them for her'——
She did not look at him once as she spoke, or she might have been encouraged by the look on his face, which softened into a very benignant, kindly expression.
'To be sure! to be sure!' he said. 'I 've no objection to your taking some of them for the baby—at your sister's.' He spoke the last words with some meaning, and she looked quickly up at him and dropped her work as if tumultuous words were pressing to be spoken, but stopped them with an effort and went on with her work, only with heightened colour and trembling fingers.
She was not slow to avail herself of his permission, for that very night, before she went to bed, he heard her in the next room turning out the drawer where the old baby-clothes had been stored away ever since little Edith had discarded them for clothes of a larger size. And next morning she was up betimes, starching and ironing and goffering dainty little frills with such a look of love and satisfaction on her face, that he had not the heart to hint that she had availed herself somewhat liberally of his permission, and that less dainty care and crispness might do equally well for the baby, bundled up in Mrs Gray's kind but crumpling arms, to take the place of Bill's faded pinafore.