“Who brought her?”
She imagined the boy a simpleton, and expected one of such answers as inconvenient questions in natural history receive from nurses.
“I don’t know, ma’am. I took her out of the water-butt.”
The thing grew bewildering.
“Who put her there?”
“I don’t know, ma’am.”
“Whose baby is she, then?”
“Mine, I think, ma’am.”
“God bless the boy!” said the woman impatiently, and stared at him speechless.
Her daughter in the meantime had filled the phial with new milk. She handed it to him. He grasped it eagerly. Tears of joy came in his big hungry eyes.