"Little dears! Ain't they pretty when they prattles their little prayers?" asked Mrs Gowler, as her lips parted in a terrible smile. "Many's the time I've given 'em gin from me own bottle to give the little angels sleep."
She said more to the same effect, to pause before saying, with a return to her practical manner:
"An' the gentlemen! They're always 'appy when anything 'appens to baby."
Mavis looked at the woman with questioning eyes; she wondered what she meant. For a few moments Mrs Gowler attempted to lull Mavis's uneasiness by extravagant praise of infants' ways, which culminated in a hideous imitation of baby language. Suddenly she stopped; her little eyes glared fiercely at Mavis, while her face became rigid.
"What's the matter?" asked the girl.
Mrs Gowler rose unsteadily to her feet and said:
"Ten quid down will save you from forking out five bob a week till you're blue in the face from paying it."
Mavis stared at her in astonishment. Mrs Gowler backed to the door.
"Told yer you'd fallen on your feet. Next time you'll know better. No pretty pretties: one little nightdress is all you'll want. But it's spot cash."
Mavis was alone; it was, comparatively, a long time before she gathered what Mrs Gowler meant. When she realised that the woman had as good as offered to murder her child, when born, for the sum of ten pounds, her first impulse was to leave the house. But it was now late; she was worn out with the day's happenings; also, she reflected that, with the scanty means at her disposal, a further move to a like house to Mrs Gowler's might find her worse off than she already was. Her heart was heavy with pain when she knelt by her bedside to say her prayers, but, try as she might, she could find no words with which to thank her heavenly Father for the blessings of the day and to implore their continuance for the next, as was her invariable custom. When she got up from her knees, she hoped that the disabilities of her present situation would atone for any remissness of which she had been guilty. Although she was very tired, it was a long time before she slept. She lay awake, to think long and lovingly of Perigal. This, and Jill's presence, were the two things that sustained her during those hours of sleeplessness in a strange, fearsome house, troubled as she was with the promise of infinite pain.