Lady Bassett had announced herself able
for the journey.
After breakfast he asked her rather suddenly whether Mrs. Millar was
not rather an elderly woman to select for a nurse. "I thought people
got a young woman for that office."
"Oh," said Lady Bassett, "why, Mrs. Millar is not _the_ nurse. Of
course nurse is young and healthy, and from the country, and the best I
could have in every way for baby. But yet--oh, Charles, I hope you will
not be angry--who do you think nurse is? It is Mary Gosport--Mary Wells
that was."
Sir Charles was a little staggered. He put this and that together, and
said, "Why, she must have been playing the fool, then?"
"Hush! not so loud, dear. She is a married woman now, and her husband
gone to sea, and her child dead. Most wet-nurses have a child of their
own; and don't you think they must hate the stranger's child that parts
them from their own? Now baby is a comfort to Mary. And the wet-nurse
is always a tyrant; and I thought, as this one has got into a habit of
obeying me, she might be more manageable; and then as to her having
been imprudent, I know many ladies who have been obliged to shut their
eyes a little. Why, consider, Charles, would good wives and good
mothers leave their own children to nurse a stranger's? Would their
husbands let them? And I thought," said she, piteously, "we were so
fortunate to get a young, healthy girl, imprudent but not vicious,
whose fault had been covered by marriage, and then so attached to us
both as she is, poor thing!"
Sir Charles was in no humor to make mountains of mole-hills.
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