silken braid that she had there and then
determined to secure it for Lily either by the legitimate
means of asking Mr. Blunt for the money, or
by selling or pawning her own goods and chattels,
or by bursting bodily into the shop and making off
with the much-coveted robe. Fortunately,
however, measures so desperate had not to be resorted
to. Mr. Blunt happened to be in funds and in a
good humour, when he received a pathetic and
ill-spelt letter directed to F. B. ; and the sum
demanded, which was but two guineas, was
forwarded. But chiefly had Mrs. Pigott found
favour in the fine gentleman's eyes from the
exquisite cleanliness and neatness in which she
had always kept Lily. The philosophical twin
objected on principle to soap, and his father
deprecated his being subjected to much lavatory
discipline, on the ground that he (the twin)
would be washed away if he were washed often ;
but there was always warm water for Lily and
Windsor soap for Lily ; nay, on one occasion
good Nurse Pigott had purchased a bar of
Castile soap, the which, from its curiously marbled
appearance, the child imagined to be sweetstuff,
and essayed to suck. Winter and summer she
never went without her bath, and although her
poor little garments had frequently to be pieced
and darned, she was always shining as the newest
of pins.

A very few words will suffice to explain how
Lily came into Nurse Pigott's custody. Three
years and a half before the commencement of
this history, the plasterer became cognisant of
an advertisement in the day before yesterday's
Morning Advertiser (it was before the days of
penny journalism), which he was in the habit of
borrowing from the hostelry where he purchased
his modest allowance of beer. This advertisement
set forth that a lady and gentleman were
desirous of placing an infant at nurse with some
respectable person in the immediate vicinity of
London. The Pigotts then occupied a diminutive
cottage at Brentford. Forthwith they answered
the advertisement, in an epistle which the
plasterer considered to be a chef-d'Å“uvre of
calligraphy and composition, and which was,
indeed, a marvel of archaic orthography and
abnormal pothooks and hangers. In due time an
answer arrived, and an appointment was made to
meet the advertiser in London. Thither went
Nurse Pigott, arrayed in her Sunday best; and,
at a specified hotel in Dover-street, Piccadilly,
she was received – not by Mr. Blunt, but by
Monsieur Sournois, from Switzerland, his valet,
who made all the necessary arrangements for the
reception of an infant six months old, and paid a
month in advance of the sum stipulated for.
Being asked whether the child was christened
(for Nurse Pigott was a staunch Church of
England woman), he replied that it did not
matter. Being pressed on this point, he said
it was all right, and that the child's name
was Lily Smith. And as Lily Smith she
was received by Nurse Pigott. The good
woman did not feel herself called upon to ask
any more questions. Infants are put out to
nurse every year, and by the thousand, in and
about London, without references more searching
than a money-payment in advance. Very often
no name at all is asked for or furnished. I
wonder whether such a system encourages
immorality. I should like to hear, on this subject,
those blessed Sisters of La Sainte Enfance,
"the Holy Childhood" at Hong-Kong, who buy
babies from the Chinese mothers to save the
little innocents from being cast into the sea, or
thrown (as they are in the interior of China) to
the pigs.

The little Lily Smith throve apace, and had
not more than an average share of infantile
ailments. Monsieur Sournois came at first once
a month to see Baby, and greatly impressed
Nurse Pigott with the amenity of his manners
and the affability of his conversation. By-and-
by he was succeeded by Mr. Blunt, who never
kissed the child, or fondled it, or took much more
notice of it, in a languid survey through the
medium of his eye-glass, than if Lily had been
a waxen doll in a toy-shop. Thus did the little
girl remain until she was nearly four years of
age; and it was a day of bitter sorrow for Nurse
Pigott and the plasterer, when a curt letter
arrived from Mr. Blunt – or F. B., as he continued
to sign himself – directing the child to be made
ready and brought to the present place of
rendezvous. So Lily, poor little shorn lamb, after
having the wind tempered to her, was suddenly
to be given up to the grim gaunt wolf.

I retract – gaunt if you please, but not grim;
for while I have been telling the story of Lily's
babyhood, Mr. Blunt's countenance has been
robed in his most dulcet smile, and he has
been exhausting his seductive arsenal to soothe
and conciliate the sobbing child. He has done
everything but kiss her. One loses the taste for
innocent kisses as one loses the taste for bread-
and-jam.

The nurse was consoled and the child quieted
at last; and after an infinity of hugging, the
plasterer's wife announced that she was ready
to go, and that she was sorry for having kept
the gentleman so long. Between the spasms
of her parting embrace she told Lily that she
should see her again very soon.

"And I may, mayn't I, sir?" she continued,
turning with an appealing look to the dandy.
"Oh say that I may, if it's only once a year. I
shall break my 'art, I know I shall, if I don't see
my darling again."

"Of course, of course!" replied Blunt, who
would have promised anything to secure a good
deliverance. "The child shall write to you" –
poor little Lily, who didn't know great A from a
bull's foot: "that is, I'll write, yes, yes. Now,
my good Nurse Pigott, we really must be going,
you know."

So two heavy hearts and one very callous heart
went out of the little tavern parlour and into the
road: the landlady and her inquisitive daughter
craning their necks after all the hearts. There