her excitement, not knowing what she was doing, she handed it a biscuit,
which it snatched at greedily and began sucking.

Then she set to work to slap the old lady back to life again. In about a
minute the poor old soul opened her eyes and looked round. The baby was
quiet now, gnawing the dog-biscuit. The old lady looked at the child,
then turned and hid her face against the chambermaid's bosom.

"What is it?" she says, speaking in an awed voice. "The thing in the
hamper?"

"It's a baby, Ma'am," says the maid.

"You're sure it ain't a dog?" says the old lady. "Look again."

The girl began to feel nervous, and to wish that she wasn't alone with
the old lady.

"I ain't likely to mistake a dog for a baby, Ma'am," says the girl. "It's
a child--a human infant."

The old lady began to cry softly. "It's a judgment on me," she says. "I
used to talk to that dog as if it had been a Christian, and now this
thing has happened as a punishment."

"What's happened?" says the chambermaid, who was naturally enough growing
more and more curious.

"I don't know," says the old lady, sitting up on the floor. "If this
isn't a dream, and if I ain't mad, I started from my home at Farthinghoe,