Tottie, in a state of considerable surprise, replied that she had.
“Go and put ’em on then, and get that thing also ready to go out.”
Miss Stivergill pointed to the baby contemptuously, as it were, with her nose.
“He’s a very good bybie”—so the child pronounced it—“on’y rather self-willed at times, m’m,” said Tottie, going through the athletic feat of lifting her charge.
“Just so. True to your woman’s nature. Always ready to apologise for the male monster that tyrannises over you. I suppose, now, you’d say that your drunken father was a good man?”
Miss Stivergill repented of the speech instantly on seeing the tears start into Tottie’s large eyes as she replied quickly—“Indeed I would, m’m. Oh! you’ve no notion ’ow kind father is w’en ’e’s not in liquor.”
“There, there. Of course he is. I didn’t mean to say he wasn’t, little Bones. It’s a curious fact that many drun—, I mean people given to drink, are kind and amiable. It’s a disease. Go now, and get your things on, and do you likewise, Lilly. My cab is at the door. Be quick.”
In a few minutes the whole party descended to the street. Miss Stivergill locked the door with her own hand, and put the key in her pocket. As she turned round, Tottie’s tawdry bonnet had fallen off in her efforts to raise the baby towards the outstretched hands of her mistress, while the cabman stood looking on with amiable interest.
Catching up the bonnet, Miss Stivergill placed it on the child’s head, back to the front, twisted the strings round her head and face—anyhow—lifted her and her charge into the cab, and followed them.
“Where to, ma’am?” said the amiable cabman.