Your wife may come and nurse it. We will
take charge of it.
GINX. And you won't send it back again? You'll take it for good
and all?
NUN. O, yes.
GINX. Good. Give us yer hand.
A little white hand came out from under her burthen, and was at
once half-crushed in Ginx's elephantine grasp.
GINX. Done. Thank'ee, missus. Come, mates, I'll stand a drink.
A few minutes after, the woman of the cross, who had been up to
comfort the poor mother, fluttered with her white wings down
Rosemary Street, carrying in her arms Ginx's Baby.
PART II.
WHAT CHARITY AND THE CHURCHES DID WITH HIM.
I.--The Milk of Human Kindness, Mother's Milk, and the
Milk of the Word.
The early days of his residence at the Home of the Sisters of
Misery, in Winkle Street, was the Eden of Ginx's Baby's
existence. Themselves innocent of a mother's experiences, the
sisters were free to give play to their affections in a novel
direction, and to assume a sort of spiritual maternity that was
lucky for the changeling. He was nestled in kind serge-covered
arms: kisses rained upon him from chaste lips. A slight scandal
thrilled the convent upon the discovery of his sex, which had of
course been a pure matter of conjecture to Sister Pudicitia when
she rescued him; but enthusiasm can overcome anything.
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