"Yes; there is your baby. How do you like her?"
He gazed in silence, and at length said—"But can she walk?"
"My dear Ellison! at a day old!"
"But can she talk?"
"All in good time. You will have enough of that by-and by."
"Dear, dear! Ha!" said he, again and again, till he was sent off to dinner, at a friend's house.
He dined at some friend's house every day. On the fourth day it was at a distance of three miles. Mrs. Carey had gone home, in the twilight of a November day. As soon as she was gone, the nurse stepped out, very improperly, for something that she wanted, the child being asleep beside Joanna. She desired the servant girl to carry up her mistress's gruel in a quarter-of-an-hour, if she was not back. The girl did so; and approached the bed, with the basin in one hand and a candle in the other. She poked the candle directly against the dimity curtains, and set the bed on fire. It was a large bed, in a small crowded room, close to two walls and near the window-curtain. The flame caught the tester instantly, and then the corner of the pillow, and the edge of the sheet. Before that, the girl had thrown down the basin of hot gruel on the baby, rushed to the window, thrown up the sash, and screamed; and she next rushed out at the door, leaving it wide open, and then at the house-door, leaving that wide open too. The air streamed up the staircase, and the bed was on fire all round.
Poor Joanna crept off the bed, and took the child in one arm, while with the other she tried to pull off a blanket. She was found weakly tugging at it. He who so found her was a sailor, who had seen the light from the road, and run up the stairs.
"I see how it is, madam," said he, in a cheerful voice. "Don't be alarmed; you are very safe. Come in here." And he carried her into the next room—the little drawing-room—and laid her, with her baby on her arm, on the sofa. He summoned a comrade, who was in the road. They pulled up the drugget from the floor, doubled it again, laid it over her, and tucked it nicely in, as if there was no hurry.
"Now, madam," said he, "where shall we carry you?" She was carried through damp and dusk to her father's house. Her mother was not there. Such news spreads, nobody knows how. Her mother was then in the streets without her bonnet, imploring every body she met to save her child. She presently encountered one of the sailors, returning to the fire. He assured her the lady and child were safe, and sent her home. Mr. Carey was almost as much beside himself. His first idea was, that it was Mr. Ellison who had, by some awkwardness, set his house on fire; and he said so, very publicly; and very sorry he was for it afterward.