'So bring me the precious Baby, Tilly,' said she, drawing a chair
to the fire; 'and while I have it in my lap, here's Mrs. Fielding,
Tilly, will tell me all about the management of Babies, and put me
right in twenty points where I'm as wrong as can be. Won't you,
Mrs. Fielding?'

Not even the Welsh Giant, who, according to the popular expression,
was so 'slow' as to perform a fatal surgical operation upon
himself, in emulation of a juggling-trick achieved by his arch-
enemy at breakfast-time; not even he fell half so readily into the
snare prepared for him, as the old lady did into this artful
pitfall. The fact of Tackleton having walked out; and furthermore,
of two or three people having been talking together at a distance,
for two minutes, leaving her to her own resources; was quite enough
to have put her on her dignity, and the bewailment of that
mysterious convulsion in the Indigo trade, for four-and-twenty
hours. But this becoming deference to her experience, on the part
of the young mother, was so irresistible, that after a short
affectation of humility, she began to enlighten her with the best
grace in the world; and sitting bolt upright before the wicked Dot,
she did, in half an hour, deliver more infallible domestic recipes
and precepts, than would (if acted on) have utterly destroyed and
done up that Young Peerybingle, though he had been an Infant
Samson.

To change the theme, Dot did a little needlework--she carried the
contents of a whole workbox in her pocket; however she contrived
it, I don't know--then did a little nursing; then a little more
needlework; then had a little whispering chat with May, while the