The Boots took the
hamper up, and laid it on the hearthrug. The old lady said she and the
chambermaid would see to it, and turned him out. By this time, according
to the girl's account, it was roaring like a steam-siren.

"Pretty dear!" says the old lady, fumbling with the cord, "don't cry;
mother's opening it as fast as she can." Then she turns to the
chambermaid--"If you open my bag," says she, "you will find a bottle of
milk and some dog-biscuits."

"Dog-biscuits!" says the chambermaid.

"Yes," says the old lady, laughing, "my baby loves dog-biscuits."

The girl opened the bag, and there, sure enough, was a bottle of milk and
half a dozen Spratt's biscuits. She had her back to the old lady, when
she heard a sort of a groan and a thud as made her turn round. The old
lady was lying stretched dead on the hearthrug--so the chambermaid
thought. The kid was sitting up in the hamper yelling the roof off. In
her excitement, not knowing what she was doing, she handed it a biscuit,
which it snatched at greedily and began sucking.

Then she set to work to slap the old lady back to life again. In about a
minute the poor old soul opened her eyes and looked round. The baby was
quiet now, gnawing the dog-biscuit. The old lady looked at the child,
then turned and hid her face against the chambermaid's bosom.

"What is it?" she says, speaking in an awed voice. "The thing in the
hamper?"

"It's a baby, Ma'am," says the maid.

"You're sure it ain't a dog?" says the old lady. "Look again."

The girl began to feel nervous, and to wish that she wasn't alone with
the old lady.

"I ain't likely to mistake a dog for a baby, Ma'am," says the girl. "It's
a child--a human infant."

The old lady began to cry softly. "It's a judgment on me," she says. "I
used to talk to that dog as if it had been a Christian, and now this
thing has happened as a punishment."

"What's happened?" says the chambermaid, who was naturally enough growing
more and more curious.

"I don't know," says the old lady, sitting up on the floor. "If this
isn't a dream, and if I ain't mad, I started from my home at Farthinghoe,
two hours ago, with a one-year-old bulldog packed in that hamper. You
saw me open it; you see what's inside it now."

"But bulldogs," says the chambermaid, "ain't changed into babies by
magic."

"I don't know how it's done," says the old lady, "and I don't see that it
matters. I know I started with a bulldog, and som