on seeing my father, and Mrs. Waddy, after much hesitation, and even
weeping, furnished the address: upon hearing which, spoken aside to him,
he said, 'I thought so.' Mrs. Waddy entreated him to be respectful to my
father, who was, she declared, his superior, and, begging everybody's
pardon present, the superior of us all, through no sin of his own, that
caused him to be so unfortunate; and a real Christian and pattern, in
spite of outsides, though as true a gentleman as ever walked, and by
rights should be amongst the highest. She repeated 'amongst the highest'
reprovingly, with the ears of barley in her blue bonnet shaking, and her
hands clasped tight in her lap. Old Mr. Bannerbridge (that was the old
gentleman's name) came back very late from his visit to my father, so
late that he said it would be cruel to let me go out in the street after
my bed-time. Mrs. Waddy consented to my remaining, on the condition of
my being surrendered to her at nine o'clock, and no later, the following
morning.

I was assured by Mr. Bannerbridge that my father's health and appetite
were excellent; he gave me a number of unsatisfying messages, all the
rest concerning his interview he whispered to his daughter and his
sister, Miss Bannerbridge, who said they hoped they would have news from
Hampshire very early, so that the poor child might be taken away by the
friends of his infancy. I could understand that my father was
disapproved of by them, and that I was a kind of shuttlecock flying
between two battledores; but why they pitied me I could not understand.
There was a great battle about me when Mrs. Waddy appeared punctual to
her appointed hour. The victory was hers, and I, her prize, passed a
whole day in different conveyances, the last of which landed us miles
away from London, at the gates of an old drooping, mossed and streaked
farmhouse, that was like a wall-flower in colour.