Before long she was allowed to take it out in the perambulator Schottman had bought for her. The hospital was located in a bleak, northern section of town, a region long associated in Ellen’s mind with the foreign population, principally German, and much sniffed at by people of the West End where she had lived. She remembered how depressing that day had been when they first drove to the hospital, through wintry streets between endless rows of low-roofed, packed-in brick houses and frame cottages. They had a humbler and more domestic air than she was used to, and gave forth odors of strong cookery, stale lager and of musty parlours seldom opened to the air. But the four months of hospital life in their midst had accustomed her to these exotic touches, and when the people began to overflow into the streets at the first hint of warm weather and to take a kindly interest in her child, she felt drawn to them. It amused her to have them think, as they sometimes did, that she was the nurse or governess.
It was a mistake, perhaps natural, that Dr. Schottman at least viewed with satisfaction. The little girl’s charm would serve his purpose with the Blaydons to whom he was taking them. He had never entertained any doubt that Ellen would win them in her own way. Her willingness and modesty, a form of rough good breeding, would recommend her well. But if the child should be really attractive, so much the better for everybody.
“Come now,” he teased Ellen, “this little chick has a high tone about her. What you think? Better let me hunt up the young scapegrace and show him what a handsome little rascal he’s responsible for.”
“How do you know he’s young?” laughed Ellen. He had never pressed the question of fatherhood, and she was not afraid that he would ever try to.
“And what will you name it? For it’s mother, eh?”
Ellen had settled that matter. She had decided long before on the name of Moira, for Moira McCoy, the pretty, laughing, assistant head nurse, who had been the first to befriend her. But concerning this she also chose to keep her counsel for the present. Another thing troubled her mightily.
“Are these—these people I’m going to live with Episcopalians?”
He laughed.
“I believe there’s a division in the family. Ach, these Christian distinctions! They split God up into small pieces like a pie, and each one takes a different slice. They are afraid to get indigestion from too much goodness, eh? But ‘Aunt Mathilda’—that is the sister-in-law—is Episcopalian. High church they call it. Oh, very high! It will suit you that way, I guess. And she is the boss. You’ll find that out.”
High church. That would do very well. It was the serious question of her daughter’s christening that disturbed her.