"And, indeed, sir," said Miss Betty, who had rubbed her nose till it
looked like the twin toadstool to that which the baby was flourishing in
her face, "you won't suppose I would have left the poor little thing
another moment, to catch its death of cold on a warm evening like this;
but having no experience of such cases, and remembering that murder at
the inn in the Black Valley, and that the body was not allowed to be
moved till the constables had seen it, I didn't feel to know how it
might be with foundlings, and--"
But still Miss Betty did not touch the bairn. She was not accustomed to
children. But the parson had christened too many babies to be afraid of
them, and he picked up the little fellow in a moment, and tucked the
yellow rag round him, and then addressing the little ladies precisely as
if they were sponsors, he asked in his deep round voice, "Now where on
the face of the earth are the vagabonds who have deserted this child?"
The little ladies did not know, the broom bushes were silent, and the
question has remained unanswered from that day to this.
There were no railways near Lingborough at this time. The coach ran
three times a week, and a walking postman brought the letters from the
town to the small hamlets. Telegraph wires were unknown, and yet news
travelled quite as fast then as it does now, and in the course of the
following morning all the neighbourhood knew that Miss Betty had found a
baby under a broom bush, and the lawyer called in the afternoon to
inquire how the ladies found themselves after the tea party at Mrs.
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