“Oh, Rosie,” she presently blurted out, “I would like to have this child!”

“Would you?” replied Rose, all smiles.

“No, but, seriously and without joking, I really would, you know.”

“I daresay,” laughed the plump little mother, and her laugh was echoed by Keziah as she passed into the adjoining nursery—­to leave the long parted sisters to themselves.

“Now, look here,” the guest addressed the hostess, thoughtfully and deliberately, as soon as they were alone, “if you will give her to me, I will bring her up and educate her as perfectly as care and money can do it.  She shall take the name of Pennycuick, and be my daughter, and my heiress, and the future representative of the family.  And,” she added, for her own inward ear, “we can live at home or somewhere, if necessary, where Breens and such will not have the chance to interfere with us.”

“As if I would give my baby away,” Rose sweetly jeered her—­“even for a kingdom!”

“You have five more, and may have another five—­or twenty-five.  It looks like it.”

“But none to spare.  Besides, you won’t want other people’s children when you get your own.  How about her being the heiress then?”

“I shall never have children of my own,” said Deb, with tightened lips.  “That is why I want to adopt one.”  Rose laughed the idea to scorn.

“Of course you will!” cried she.  “You must.  All the money in the world is nothing compared with a baby.  I wouldn’t give one of mine for twenty fortunes—­not if I had to earn their keep at the wash-tub.”

“Not even for the child’s own advantage?”

“It is not to any child’s advantage to grow up thinking that its mother did not care to be a mother to it,” said Rose.  “Nor yet—­possibly—­to grow up to look down on her.”

“Rose!” Deb’s guilty face flamed scarlet.

“Or on her father,” Rose continued, with soft but firm persistence.  “She must have a father too, Deb, and Peter would not give his job away any more than I would give mine.  He thinks the world of them all.  He is just as good a father as he is a husband,” with a lift of head and lighting of eye.  “Come to me, my precious!” as the baby whimpered.  “Come to its own mother, then!  No, no, Debbie dear, you be a mother yourself in the natural and proper way; you will find it a deal better than being rich.  Marry some good, kind man straight away, before you waste any more of your young years.  I am sure there must be dozens dying to have you.”

“Dying to have the handling of Mr Thornycroft’s money,” said Deb, with a bitterness that surprised her sister.

“Oh, no,” said she; “you are sufficient attraction without that.”