The establishment was on the smallest scale. There were less than half a dozen servants where there had once been twenty.
No portly powdered footman came to Mr. Bosworth's summons, but a little old man in a very shabby livery shambled along the passage at the sound of his master's bell.
"Has there been a child brought here?"
"Yes, sir."
"Good. Send Mrs. Layburne here."
The man shambled out again. The Squire flung off hat and riding-gloves, and seated himself by his solitary hearth. There were some logs smouldering there, for the September mornings were cool, and the Squire was of a chilly temper. The table was laid for a frugal breakfast of tea and toast; not by any means the kind of meal which would have satisfied the average country gentleman of that era; a scrivener's or a garreteer's breakfast rather.
The Squire poured himself out a cup of tea, and sat sipping it with an absent stir, and his eye upon the door.
It was flung open abruptly, and a woman entered, tall, with noble neck and shoulders, and the carriage of Dido herself – a magnificent ruin. No one could doubt that the creature had once been eminently beautiful; there were traces still of those vanished charms: eyes of velvety brown, full, fiery, splendid, and the outline of fine features. But the skin was withered and yellow, the raven hair was grizzled, some of the teeth had gone, and nose and chin had both become too prominent. The queen had degenerated into the hag.
She was shabbily and carelessly dressed in a black stuff gown, with laced bodice and muslin kerchief. She wore no cap, and her coarse unkempt hair was gathered into a loose knot on the top of her head.
"An extinct volcano," thought the student of character, as he looked at that haggard countenance, with its premature wrinkles and unhealthy pallor. "A slumbering volcano, rather," he might say to himself upon closer scrutiny.
"Well," said the Squire, "I sent you home a child."
"You sent me some beggar's daughter, I should say, by her rags. I have washed her, and dressed her in some of Rena's clothes. What put it into your astute head to interfere with the people whose duty it may be to take charge of vagrants?"
"I don't usually act without a motive, as I think you know, Barbara. If the child is sound in wind and limb – a healthy child – I intend to adopt her. Rena wants a companion, I am told – "
"Nurse Bridget's fancy. I wonder you lend your ear to an ignorant country wench."
"The country wench is sustained by the doctor, and by facts. Rena has been drooping of late. Another baby's company may enliven her. Have you put them together?"
"Not I," protested Barbara; "it would have been more than my place is worth to act without orders. I never forget that I am a servant. You ought to know that."
"You tell me of it often enough," said the Squire, shrugging his shoulders. "The misfortune is that you never let me forget you were once something else."
"O, but the memory of it never ruffles your peace," sneered the woman, with a flashing glance at the stern, cold face. "It was so long ago, you see, Squire, and you have a knack of taking things coolly."
"Come and let us introduce the children to each other," said Bosworth, rising; and he followed Barbara Layburne to the further end of the house, where the sound of a crying baby indicated the neighbourhood of the nursery.
It was not the friendless waif who thus bewailed her inarticulate misery. The little stranger was asleep in Barbara's room on the upper story. It was the heiress who was lamenting her infantine woes. Buxom, apple-cheeked Bridget was marching up and down the room, trying to hush her to sleep.
"She's cutting another tooth, sir," she said apologetically.
"She seems to be everlastingly cutting teeth," muttered Bosworth, with a vexed air; "I never come to see her that she is not wailing. Fetch me the other child, Barbara; I want to see them together."
The other child was brought, newly awakened from the refreshing slumber that had been induced by her bath. Her large blue eyes explored the unknown room, full of a pleased wonder. There were bright-coloured chintz curtains, worsted-work shepherds and shepherdesses framed and glazed upon the flowered wall-papering. The nurseries were the brightest rooms in the rambling old house; had been brightened by the young mother before the coming of her baby.
The nameless child had a sweet placidity which appealed to the Squire.
"I suppose she has teeth to cut, too," he said, "but you see she doesn't cry."
"She cried loud enough while I was dressing her," retorted Barbara.
"Put them on the floor side by side," ordered the Squire.
The two infants were set down at his command. They were both at the crawling stage of existence, that early dawn in which humanity goes upon all fours. They seemed about the same size and age, as nearly as might be guessed. They had eyes and hair of the same colour, and had that resemblance common to pretty children. The heiress had a sicklier air than the waif, and was less beautiful in colouring.
"They would pass for twin sisters," said Bosworth; "come, now, Mistress Bridget, do you think you would know them apart?"
Bridget resented the suggestion as an insult to her affection and her intellect.
"I should know my own little darling anywheres," she said; "and this strange child ain't half so pretty."
"There's a mark she'll carry for life, anyhow," said Barbara Layburne, taking up the stranger, and baring the baby's right arm just where it joined the shoulder. "A burn or a scald, you see, Squire. I can't say which it is, but I don't think she'll outlive the scar."
Bosworth glanced at it indifferently.
"A deep brand," he said, and that was all.
He was watching his own child, who was staring at the intruder with looks of keenest interest. She had left off crying, and was crawling assiduously towards the baby-waif, whom Barbara Layburne had set down upon the floor a little way off. The two infants crawled to each other like two puppies, and climbed and tumbled over each other just as young animals might have done, obeying instinct rather than reason.
Presently the little lady uplifted her voice and crowed aloud, and then began to talk after her fashion, which was backward, as of a child brought up amidst gloom and silence.
"Gar, gar, gar!" she reiterated, in a gurgling monotone.
The other baby looked about her, and murmured piteously, "Dada, dada!" and seeing not him whom she sought, she began to cry.
"Another fountain!" exclaimed the Squire, turning upon his heel.
He stopped on the threshold to look back at nurse and children.
"You have had your whim, Mistress Bridget," he said, shaking his forefinger at her; "look you that no harm comes of it;" and with that he stalked away, and went back to his den, without so much as a word to Barbara Layburne, who looked after him with strangely wistful eyes.
Then, when the sound of