“No! my father was English, his name was Henry Brandt, and my mother was a Miss Carey—daughter of one of the Justices of Barbadoes!”
“O! indeed!” replied Mrs. Pullen. She did not know what else to say. The subject was of no interest to her! At that moment they encountered the nurse and perambulator, and she naturally stopped to speak to her baby.
The sight of the infant seemed to drive Miss Brandt wild.
“O! is that your baby, Mrs. Pullen, is that really your baby?” she exclaimed excitedly, “you never told me you had one. O! the darling! the sweet dear little angel! I love little white babies! I adore them. They are so sweet and fresh and clean—so different from the little niggers who smell so nasty, you can’t touch them! We never saw a baby in the Convent, and so few English children live to grow up in Jamaica! O! let me hold her! let me carry her! I must!”
She was about to seize the infant in her arms, when the mother interposed.
“No, Miss Brandt, please, not this evening! She is but half awake, and has arrived at that age when she is frightened of strangers. Another time perhaps, when she has become used to you, but not now!”
“But I will be so careful of her, pretty dear!” persisted the girl, “I will nurse her so gently, that she will fall to sleep again in my arms. Come! my little love, come!” she continued to the baby, who pouted her lips and looked as if she were going to cry.
“Leave her alone!” exclaimed Elinor Leyton in a sharp voice. “Do you not hear what Mrs. Pullen says—that you are not to touch her!”
She spoke so acridly, that gentle Margaret Pullen felt grieved for the look of dismay that darted into Harriet Brandt’s face on hearing it.
“O! I am sorry—I didn’t mean—” she stammered, with a side glance at Margaret.