“Well, she would not speak, and I thought it best not to interrupt her; but she sat and looked at my two youngest that were playing on the rug; and just as Mr. Titmarsh and his friend Gus went out, the boy brought the newspaper, ma’am,—­it always comes from three to four, and I began a-reading of it.  But I couldn’t read much, for thinking of poor Mr. Sam’s sad face as he went out, and the sad story he told me about his money being so low; and every now and then I stopped reading, and bade Mrs. T. not to take on so; and told her some stories about my dear little Antony.

“‘Ah!’ says she, sobbing, and looking at the young ones, ’you have other children, Mrs. Stokes; but that—­that was my only one;’ and she flung back in her chair, and cried fit to break her heart:  and I knew that the cry would do her good, and so went back to my paper—­the Morning Post, ma’am; I always read it, for I like to know what’s a-going on in the West End.

“The very first thing that my eyes lighted upon was this:—­’Wanted, immediately, a respectable person as wet-nurse.  Apply at No. —–­, Grosvenor Square.’  ‘Bless us and save us!’ says I, ’here’s poor Lady Tiptoff ill;’ for I knew her Ladyship’s address, and how she was confined on the very same day with Mrs. T.:  and, for the matter of that, her Ladyship knows my address, having visited here.

“A sudden thought came over me.  ‘My dear Mrs. Titmarsh,’ said I, ’you know how poor and how good your husband is?’

“‘Yes,’ says she, rather surprised.

“‘Well, my dear,’ says I, looking her hard in the face, ’Lady Tiptoff, who knows him, wants a nurse for her son, Lord Poynings.  Will you be a brave woman, and look for the place, and mayhap replace the little one that God has taken from you?’

“She began to tremble and blush; and then I told her what you, Mr. Sam, had told me the other day about your money matters; and no sooner did she hear it than she sprung to her bonnet, and said, ‘Come, come:’  and in five minutes she had me by the arm, and we walked together to Grosvenor Square.  The air did her no harm, Mr. Sam, and during the whole of the walk she never cried but once, and then it was at seeing a nursery-maid in the Square.

“A great fellow in livery opens the door, and says, ’You’re the forty-fifth as come about this ’ere place; but, fust, let me ask you a preliminary question.  Are you a Hirishwoman?’

“‘No, sir,’ says Mrs. T.

“‘That suffishnt, mem,’ says the gentleman in plush; ’I see you’re not by your axnt.  Step this way, ladies, if you please.  You’ll find some more candidix for the place upstairs; but I sent away forty-four happlicants, because they was Hirish.’

“We were taken upstairs over very soft carpets, and brought into a room, and told by an old lady who was there to speak very softly, for my Lady was only two rooms off.  And when I asked how the baby and her Ladyship were, the old lady told me both were pretty well:  only the doctor said Lady Tiptoff was too delicate to nurse any longer; and so it was considered necessary to have a wet-nurse.