"I nursed your step-papa as a baby, Miss Halliday," she said very often
on these occasions. "You wouldn't think, to look at him now, that he ever
was _that_, would you? But he was one of the finest babies you could wish
to see--tall, and strong, and with eyes that pierced one through, they
were so bright and big and black. He was rather stubborn-spirited with
his teething; but what baby isn't trying at such times? I had rare work
with him, I can tell you, Miss, walking him about of nights, and jogging
him till there wasn't a jog left in me, as you may say, from sleepiness.
I often wonder if he thinks of this now, when I see him looking so grave
and stern. But, you see, being jogged doesn't impress the mind like
having to jog; and though I can bring that time back as plain as if it
was yesterday, with the very nursery I slept in at Barlingford, and the
rushlight in a tall iron cage on the floor, and the shadow of the cage on
the bare whitewashed walls--it's clean gone out of his mind, I dare say."
"I'm afraid it has, Nancy."
"But, O, I was fond of him, Miss Halliday; and what I went through with
him about his teeth made me only the fonder of him. He was the first baby
I ever nursed, you see, and the last; for before Master George came to
town I'd taken to the cooking, and Mrs. Sheldon hired another girl as
nurse; a regular softy _she_ was, and it isn't her fault that Master
George has got anything christian-like in the way of a back, for the way
she carried that blessed child used to make my blood run cold.
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