During this colloquy, Anthony had gradually woke up, and turning from one strange face to another, he lost all his former confidence, and began to cry. Paisley, who was really interested in the child, kindly wiped away his tears with the corner of her white apron, and gently led the weeper from the room.
While performing for him the long and painful ablutions which his condition required, Mrs. Paisley was astonished at his patience. "Why, Master Godfrey would have roared and kicked, like a mad thing that he is, if I had taken half the liberty with him," said the dame to herself. "Well, well, the little fellow seems to have a good temper of his own. Now you have got a clean face, my little man, let me look at you, and see what you are like."
She turned him round and round, took off her spectacles, carefully wiped them, and re-adjusting them upon her nose, looked at the child with as much astonishment as if he had been some rare creature that had never before been exhibited in a Christian land.
"Mercy on me! but the likeness is truly wonderful—his very image; all but the dark eye; and that he may have got from the mother, as Master Godfrey got his. I don't like to form hard thoughts of my master; but this is strange.—Mr. Glen!" and she rose hastily, and opened a door that led from her own little sanctuary into the servants' hall—"please to step in here for a moment."
"What's your pleasure, Mistress Paisley?" said the butler, a rosy, portly, good-natured man, of the regular John Bull breed, who, in snow-white trowsers, and blue-striped linen jacket, and a shirt adorned with a large frill (frills were then in fashion), strutted into the room. "Mistress Paisley, ma'arm, vot are your commands?"
"Oh, Mr. Glen," said the housekeeper, simpering, "I never command my equals—I leave my betters to do that. I wanted you just to look at this child."
"Look at him—vhy, vot's the matter vith un', Mrs. Paisley? He's generally a werry naughty boy; but he looks better tempered than usual to-day."
"Why, who do you take him for?" said Mrs. Paisley, evidently delighted at the butler's mistake.
"Vhy, for Master Godfrey—is it not? Hey—vot—vhy—no—it is—and it isn't. Vot comical demonstration is this?"
"Well, I don't wonder, Jacob, at your mistake—it is, and it is not. Had they been twins, they could not have been more alike. Godfrey, to be sure, has a haughty uppish look, which this child has not. But what do you think of our master now?"