I hardly know whether to laugh or cry when I think of the mood in which I entered the orphanage. In spite of all that life had done to me, I really and truly felt as if I were about to confer an immense favour upon the doctor by allowing him to take care of my little woman.
Oh, how well I remember that little point of time!
My first disappointment was to learn that the good doctor was dead, and when I was shown into the office of his successor (everything bore such a businesslike air) I found an elderly man with a long "three-decker" neck and a glacial smile, who, pushing his spectacles up on to his forehead, said in a freezing voice:
"Well, ma'am, what is your pleasure?"
After a moment of giddiness I began to tell him my story—how I had a child and her nurse was not taking proper care of her; how I was in uncongenial employment myself, but hoped soon to get better; how I loved my little one and expected to be able to provide for her presently; and how, therefore, if he would receive her for a while, only a little while, on the understanding, the clear and definite understanding, that I could take her away as soon as I wished to. . . .
Oh dear! Oh dear:
I do not know what there was in my appearance or speech which betrayed me, but I had got no further than this when the old gentleman said sharply:
"Can you provide a copy of the register of your child's birth to show that it is legitimate?"
What answer I made I cannot recollect, except that I told the truth in a voice with a tremor in it, for a memory of the registry office was rolling back on me and I could feel my blushes flushing into my face.
The result was instantaneous. The old gentleman touched a bell, drew his spectacles down on to his nose, and said in his icy tones: