“Oh! to-morrow—after breakfast will do. It is too late to-night. But before you go, I may as well let you see the little one you are to have charge of. I hear she is awake.”
There could be no doubt upon that point, for the very rafters of the house were ringing at the moment with the yells which issued from an adjoining room.
“Come this way, Hetty.”
Mrs Loper and Mrs Larrabel, having formed a good opinion of the girl, looked on with approving smiles. The smiles changed to glances of surprise, however, when Hetty, having looked on the baby, uttered a most startling scream, while her eyes glared as though she saw a ghostly apparition.
Seizing the baby with unceremonious familiarity, Hetty struck Mrs Twitter dumb by turning it on its face, pulling open its dress, glancing at a bright red spot on its back, and uttering a shriek of delight as she turned it round again, and hugged it with violent affection, exclaiming, “Oh! my blessed Matty!”
“The child’s name is not Matty; it is Mita,” said Mrs Twitter, on recovering her breath. “What do you mean, girl?”
“Her name is not Mita, it is Matty,” returned Hetty, with a flatness of contradiction that seemed impossible in one so naturally gentle.
Mrs Twitter stood, aghast—bereft of the power of speech or motion. Mrs Loper and Mrs Larrabel were similarly affected. They soon recovered, however, and exclaimed in chorus, “What can she mean?”
“Forgive me, ma’am,” said Hetty, still holding on to baby, who seemed to have an idea that she was creating a sensation of some sort, without requiring to yell, “forgive my rudeness, ma’am, but I really couldn’t help it, for this is my long-lost sister Matilda.”
“Sister Matilda!” echoed Mrs Loper.