nose ridic’lus to behold.”  She was pious, and read the Bible aloud in the evening.  Then she had fainting fits; she could not go uphill or upstairs without great difficulty, and she had one of her fits when she first saw the child.  If with these infirmities of body and mind the ex-nurse had been easily managed, the Cheap Jack’s wife professed that she could have borne it with patience.  But the old woman was painfully shrewd, and there was no hoodwinking her.  She never allowed the Cheap Jack’s wife to go out without her, and contrived, in spite of a hundred plans and excuses, to prevent her from speaking to any of the townspeople alone.  Never, said Sal, never could she have put up with it, even for the short time before the gentleman came down to them, but for knowing it would be a paying job.  But his arrival was the signal for another catastrophe, which ended in Jan’s becoming a child of the mill.

If the sight of the baby had nearly overpowered the old nurse, the sight of the dark-eyed gentleman overwhelmed her yet more.  Then they were closeted together for a long time, and the old woman’s tongue hardly ever stopped.  Sal explained that she would not have been such a fool as to let this conversation escape her, if she could have helped it.  She took her place at the keyhole, and had an excuse ready for the old woman, if she should come out suddenly.  The old woman came out suddenly; but she did not wait for the excuse.  She sent the Cheap Jack’s wife civilly on an errand into the kitchen, and then followed her, and shut the door and turned the key upon her without hesitation, leaving her unable to hear any thing but the tones of the conversation through the parlor wall.  She never opened the door again.  As far as the Cheap Jack’s wife could tell, the old woman seemed to be remonstrating and pleading; the gentleman spoke now and then.  Then there was a lull, then a thud, then a short pause, and then the parlor-door was burst open, and the gentleman came flying towards the kitchen, and calling for the Cheap Jack’s wife.  The fact that the door was locked caused some delay, and delay was not desirable.  The old nurse had had “a fit.”  When the doctor came, he gave no hope of her life.  She had had heart disease for many years, he said.  In the midst of this confusion, a letter came for the gentleman, which seemed absolutely to distract him.  He bade Sal get the little Jan ready, and put his clothes together, and they started that evening for the mill.  Sal believed it was the doctor who recommended Mrs. Lake as a foster-mother for the baby, having attended her child.  The storm came on after they started.  The child had been very sickly ever since they left London.  The gentleman took the Cheap Jack’s wife straight back to the station, paid her handsomely, and sent her up to town again.  She had never seen him since.  As to his name, it so happened she had never heard it at the hotel; but when he was setting her off to the country with the child, she asked it, and he told her that it was Ford.  The old nurse also spoke of him as Mr. Ford, but—­so Sal fancied—­with a sort of effort, which made her suspect that it was not his real name.