oy. "Have you a feeding bottle?"

"Presarve and deliver us--I! What do you take me for, you imperant
bye?"

"I think any medicine bottle would do, if well washed out. I
shouldn't like, if there was any castor oil or senna tea dregs
left, you know. But properly washed out, it might do, with a
little milk in it."

"You'll choke the baby like that," said the old maid.

"I have seen how it is done. You stuff a bit of rag into the
throat of the bottle, and leave a tip o' rag hanging out."

"Dare say, but you byes seems to understand these things better
than I."

"Won't you come down and help me, Sally?"

"I'll come down presently when I've tumbled into some of my
clothes."

Then the head disappeared, and the casement was shut.

After the lapse of a few minutes, a light appeared at the window
of the lower room, and the door was slowly unlocked and unbarred.

Then the old woman appeared in the doorway. She wore her huge
white-frilled nightcap, that fluttered in the wind about the
shrivelled face it enclosed, but she presented an extremely limp
and attenuated appearance in her person.

"I've been a turnin' over in my head," she said, "and ten chances
to half-a-one, if that there child hev been squealin' so long,
it's either broke a blood vessel, or will die o' 'plexy. There'll
be a purty expense to the parish. There'll be two buryings laid
on it that oughten't to be. That means an extra penny in the
rates. If them there chaps wanted to murder a man, why didn't
they go and do it in Hampshire, and not go a burdenin' of this
county an' parish? There's rayson in everything."

"Do you really suppose the child will die?" asked the boy, more
concerned about the life than about the rates.

"How can I say? I've had precious little to do wi' babies, thanks
be. Now, sharp, what is it you want? I'm perishin' wi' cold."

"May I have a bottle and some milk, and a lantern?"

"You can have wot you wants, only I protest I'll have no babies
foist on me here." Then she added, "I will not trust you byes.
Show me your hands that you ain't hidin' of it behind yer back."

"I assure you the child is in Bideabout's shed. Do be quick, and
help. I am so afraid lest it die, and becomes a wanderer."

"If I can help it I will do what I can that it mayn't die, for
certain," said the woman, "anything but taking it in here, and
that I won't, I won't, I won't." Again she stamped.

Iver provided himself with the requisites as speedily as