The house to which Glory had fled out of the fog was a little dingy tobacconist's shop opening on a narrow alley that runs from Holborn into Lincoln's-Inn Fields. It was kept by the baby farmer whom she had met at the house of Polly Love, and the memory of the address thrust upon her there had been her only resource on that day of crushing disappointment and that night of peril. Mrs. Jupe's husband, a waiter at a West End club, was a simple and helpless creature, very fond of his wife, much deceived by her, and kept in ignorance of the darker side of her business operations. Their daughter, familiarly called “Booboo,” a silent child with cunning eyes and pasty cheeks, was being brought up to help in the shop and to dodge the inspector of the school board.
On coming downstairs next morning to the close and dingy parlour at the back, Glory had looked about her as one who had expected something she did not see, whereupon Mrs. Jupe, who was at breakfast with her husband, threw up her little twinkling eyes and said:
“Now I know what she's a-lookin' for; it's the byeby.”
“Where is it?” said Glory.
“Gorn, my dear.”
“Surely you don't mean——”
“No, not dead, but I 'ad to put it out, pore thing!”
“Ye see, miss,” said Mr. Jupe with his mouth full, “my missus couldn't nurse the byeby and 'tend to the biziniss as well, so as reason was——”
“It brikes my 'eart to think it; but it made such a n'ise, pore darling!”
“Does the mother know?” said Glory.