was only an outside observer, so to speak!

By way of concealing his feelings, therefore, he turned the
conversation.

"And have you come far arter him, miss, if I may make so bold as to ax
the question?" he said hesitatingly, being somewhat puzzled in his mind
as to whether "miss" or "mum" was the correct form in which to address
such a pleasant young woman, who might or might not be a matron for all
he could tell.

He evidently hit upon the right thing this time; for, she answered him
all the more pleasantly, with a bright smile on her face.

"Why, ever so far!" she exclaimed. "Don't you know that large red brick
house t'other side of the village, where Mr Vernon lives--a sort of
old-fashioned place, half covered with ivy, and with a big garden?"

"Parson Vernon's, eh?"

"Yes, Master Teddy's his little son."

"Lor', I thought he were a single man, lone and lorn like myself, and
didn't have no children," said Jupp.

"That's all you know about it," retorted the nurse. "You must be a
stranger in these parts; and, now I come to think on it, I don't believe
as I ever saw you here before."

"No, miss, I was only shifted here last week from the Junction, and
hardly knows nobody," said Jupp apologetically. "For the rights o'
that, I ain't been long in the railway line at all, having sarved ten
years o' my time aboard a man-o'-war, and left it thinking I'd like to
see what a shore billet was like; and so I got made a porter, miss, my
karacter being good on my discharge."

"Dear me, what a pity!" cried the nurse. "I do so love sailors."

"If you'll only say the word, miss, I'll go to sea again to-morrow
then!" ejaculated Jupp eagerly.

"Oh no!" laughed the nurse; "why, then I shouldn't see any more of you;
but I was telling you about Master Teddy. Parson Vernon, as you call
him, has four children in all--three of them girls, and Master Teddy is
the only boy and the youngest of the lot."

"And I s'pose he's pretty well sp'ilt?" suggested Jupp.

"You may well say that," replied the other. "He was his mother's pet,
and she, poor lady, died last year of consumption, so he's been made all
the more of since by his little sisters, and the grandmother when she
comes down, as she did at Christmas. You'd hardly believe it, small as
he looks he almost rules the house; for his father never interferes,
save some terrible row is up and he hears him crying--and he can make a
noise when he likes, can Master Teddy!"