“Indeed it is too true; and, you know, you couldn’t stand a baby.”
“Couldn’t I?” said Miss Stivergill sharply. “How d’you know that? Let me see it.”
Tottie being summoned with the baby, entered the room staggering with the rotund mountain of good-natured self-will entirely concealing her person, with exception of her feet and the pretty little coal-dusted arms with which she clasped it to her heaving breast.
“Ha! I suppose little Bones is behind it,” said Miss Stivergill.—“Set the baby down, child, and let me see you.”
Tottie obeyed. The baby, true to his principles, refused to stand. He sat down and stared at those around him in jovial defiance.
“What is your age, little Bones?”
“Just turned six, m’m,” replied Tottie, with a courtesy, which Miss Lillycrop had taught her with great pains.
“You’re sixty-six, at the least, compared with male creatures of the same age,” observed her interrogator.
“Thank you, m’m,” replied Tottie, with another dip.
“Have you a bonnet and shawl, little Bones?”