Successive efforts to induce him to wear it proved vain, so Thomasina
said the weather was warm and his hair was very thick, and she parted
this and brushed it, and Miss Kitty gave the cap to the farm-bailiff's
baby, who took to it as kindly as a dumpling to a pudding-cloth.

How the boy was ever kept inside his christening clothes, Thomasina said
she did not know. But when he got into the parson's arms he lay quite
quiet, which was a good omen. That he might lack no advantage, Miss
Betty stood godmother for him, and the parish clerk and the sexton were
his godfathers.

He was named John.

"A plain, sensible name," said Miss Betty. "And while we are about it,"
she added, "we may as well choose his surname. For a surname he must
have, and the sooner it is decided upon the better."

Miss Kitty had made a list of twenty-seven of her favourite Christian
names, which Miss Betty had sternly rejected, that everything might be
plain, practical, and respectable at the outset of the tramp-child's
career. For the same reason she refused to adopt Miss Kitty's
suggestions for a surname.

"It's so seldom there's a chance of _choosing_ a surname for anybody,
sister," said Miss Kitty, "it seems a pity not to choose a pretty one."

"Sister Kitty," said Miss Betty, "don't be romantic. The boy is to be
brought up in that station of life for which one syllable is ample. I
should have called him Smith if that had not been Thomasina's name. As
it is, I propose to call him Broom. He was found under a bush of broom,
and it goes very well with John, and sounds plain and respectable."

So Miss Betty bought a Bible, and on the flyleaf of it she wrote in her
fine, round, gentlewoman's writing--_"John Broom. With good wishes for
his welfare, temporal and eternal. From a sincere friend!"_ And when the
inscription was dry the Bible was wrapped in brown paper, and put by in
Thomasina's trunk till John Broom should come to years of discretion.

He was slow to reach them, though in other respects he grew fast.

When he began to walk he would walk barefoot. To be out of doors was his
delight, but on the threshold of the house he always sat down and
discarded his shoes and stockings. Thomasina bastinadoed the soles of
his feet with the soles of his shoes "to teach him the use of them," so
she said. But Miss Kitty sighed, and thought of the lawyer's prediction.

There was no blinking the fact that the child was as troublesome as he
was pretty