"My dear!" cried Lucy in alarm, with a glance at the woman who stood by,
all ears. And now it was that little Tom at eighteen months showed that
precocious judgment in which his mother had an instinctive belief. He
had satisfied himself with the destruction of Lucy's lace, and with
printing the impression of his mouth all over her cheeks. That little
wet wide open mouth was delicious to Lucy. No trouble had befallen her
yet that could not be wiped out by its touch. But now a new distraction
was necessary for the little hero; and his eye caught the red sash which
still was round his waist. He transferred all his thoughts to it with an
instant revolution of idea, and holding on by it like a little sailor on
a rope, drew Bice close till he could succeed in the arduous task, not
unattended by danger, of flinging himself from one to another. This game
enchanted Master Tom. Had he been a little older it would have been
changed into that daring faltering hop from one eminence, say a
footstool, to another, which flutters the baby soul. He was too insecure
in possession of those aimless little legs to venture on any such daring
feat now; but, with a valour more desperate still, he flung himself
across the gulf from Lucy's arms to those of Bice and back again, with
cries of delight. These cries, it must be allowed, were not very
articulate, but they soon became urgent, with a demand which the little
tyrant insisted upon with increasing vehemence.

"Oh, my lady," cried the nurse, "it is as plain as if he said it, and he
is saying of it, the pet, as pretty!---- He wants you to kiss Miss, he
do. Ain't that it, my own? Nursey knows his little talk. Ain't that it,
my darling lamb?"

There was a momentary pause in the strange little group linked together
by the baby's clutches. The young mother and the girl with their heads
so near each other, looked in each other's faces. In Lucy's there was a
kind of awe, in Bice's a sort of wondering wistfulness mingled with
incipient defiance. They were not born to be each other's friends. They
were different in everything; they were even on different sides in this
house--the one an intruder, belonging to the party which was destroying
the other's domestic peace. It would be vain to say that there was not a
little reluctance in Lucy's soul as she gazed at the younger girl, come
from she knew not where, established under her roof she knew not how.
She hesitated for one moment, then she bent forward