“And what’s her name, ma’am?”

“Mary Isabel, but I wish her to be called Isabel.”

“Isabel!  A beautiful name too!  Fit for a angel, ma’am.  And she is a little angel, bless her!  Such rosy cheeks!  Such a ducky little mouth!  Such blue eyes—­blue as the bluebells in the cemet’ry.  She’s as pretty as a waxwork, she really is, and any woman in the world might be proud to nurse her.”

A young mother is such a weakling that praise of her child (however crude) acts like a charm on her, and in spite of myself I was beginning to feel more at ease, when Mrs. Oliver’s husband came downstairs.

He was a short, thick-set man of about thirty-five, with a square chin, a very thick neck and a close-cropped red bullet head, and he was in his stocking feet and shirt-sleeves as if he had been dressing to go out for the evening.

I remember that it flashed upon me—­I don’t know why—­that he had seen me from the window of the room upstairs, driving up in the old man’s four-wheeler, and had drawn from that innocent circumstance certain deductions about my character and my capacity to pay.

I must have been right, for as soon as our introduction was over and I had interrupted Mrs. Oliver’s praises of my baby’s beauty by speaking about material matters, saying the terms were to be four shillings, the man, who had seated himself on the sofa to put on his boots said, in a voice that was like a shot out of a blunderbus: 

“Five.”

“How’d you mean, Ted?” said Mrs. Oliver, timidly.  “Didn’t we say four?”

“Five,” said the man again, with a still louder volume of voice.

I could see that the poor woman was trembling, but assuming the sweet air of persons who live in a constant state of fear, she said: 

“Oh yes.  It was five, now I remember.”

I reminded her that her letter had said four, but she insisted that I must be mistaken, and when I told her I had the letter with me and she could see it if she wished, she said: 

“Then it must have been a slip of the pen in a manner of speaking, ma’am.  We allus talked of five.  Didn’t we, Ted?”

“Certainly,” said her husband, who was still busy with his boots.

I saw what was going on, and I felt hot and angry, but there seemed to be nothing to do except submit.

“Very well, we’ll say five then,” I said.

“Paid in advance,” said the man, and when I answered that that would suit me very well, he added: 

“A month in advance, you know.”

By this time I felt myself trembling with indignation, as well as quivering with fear, for while I looked upon all the money I possessed as belonging to baby, to part with almost the whole of it in one moment would reduce me to utter helplessness, so I said, turning to Mrs. Oliver: 

“Is that usual?”

It did not escape me that the unhappy woman was constantly studying her husband’s face, and when he glanced up at her with a meaning look she answered, hurriedly: