Mrs. Jose considered. Presently she said, 'But not a breath of a word about the huxtering. You know very well, Jane, I want to be delicate, but I can't help myself, I must explain. There are Mrs. Ball, the greengrocer, and Mrs. Trant, who has the drapery. Have they ever asked you to take a cup o' tea with them—I mean at the same table? No, they would say it would not be fitting and proper, because you were a travelling hawker. You see what a difference it makes your having a shop counter fixed, and one you carry about with you. Now the Tomkin-Joneses are above Mrs. Ball and Mrs. Trant as the lark is above the barndoor poultry. So you may conceive that if she knew what you had been——'

Jane Marley's face became stern. She interrupted Mrs. Jose with, 'Put me aside. If I can get my Winnie into that family I will not stand in the way. I have stood in my own light long enough, and will not spoil my child's future. It is because I am not a lady that I have been as a cloud tossed by the tempest, and never able to find repose. He supposed that she could not be much, come of such as me; but when he saw her, then he discovered his error. There is the stuff in her——'

'Yes, and all required is that it shall be properly cut out.'

'Tell your friends that her father was a gentleman who has lost his wife.'

'But Winefred will speak of you.'

'What then? Say that she has been reared from the cradle by a nurse, a common sort of woman, as can't read or write; you can say, if Winefred does not speak as ladies should, or in other little things goes contrary to their ways, put it down to me, say that she learned those manners and speech of her nurse. But, mind you, tell them that she has good blood in her, and that whatsoever is faulty comes of me, her nurse, and of that they are to rid her.'

'I don't much like saying that, Jane. I am a woman who always speaks the truth.'

'It is the truth. I have been her nurse. I held her to my bosom and soothed her when she cried. No one else ever did that. And her father did lose his wife—that is to say, he ran away and left her. He went abroad, they told me, to the other end of the earth, and put the rolling seas between us. There is no lie about that.'

'Well, well, we shall see. I will say as little as possible.'

'You must say,' said Mrs. Marley, with her fingers knitted, embracing her knees, and looking stonily before her, 'you must say as how Winnie is accustomed always to call that low thing her mother, because she has not known any other, though that creature is not worthy of her; but you may also say that the nurse loves her'—Jane's eyelids flickered and her voice became less harsh—'loves her and worships the very ground on which she walks. You can't go too far in that, and if you will you can go further and say that it was time the child should be taken out of such degrading associations and be put with gentlefolks, for and because'—Jane threw up her head—'she has gentle blood in her, and because this was her father's wish.'