"Here they are; let the child have every attendance, and remember you are not to come troubling my nurse. Above all, you are not to come up to the nursery. I don't know how it happened, it was a mistake on the part of the new housemaid. You must have my permission before you see my nurse." And while talking rapidly and imperatively Mrs. Rivers, as it were, drove Mrs. Spires out of the nursery. Esther could hear them talking on the staircase, and she listened, all the while striving to collect her thoughts. Mrs. Rivers said when she returned, "I really cannot allow her to come here upsetting you." Then, as if impressed by the sombre look on Esther's face, she added: "Upsetting you about nothing. I assure you it will be all right; only a little indisposition." "I must see my baby," Esther replied. "Come, nurse, you shall see your baby the moment the doctor says it is fit to come here. You can't expect me to do more than that." Esther did not move, and thinking that it would not be well to argue with her, Mrs. Rivers went over to the cradle. "See, nurse, the little darling has just woke up; come and take her, I'm sure she wants you." Esther did not answer her. She stood looking into space, and it seemed to Mrs. Rivers that it would be better not to provoke a scene. She went towards the door slowly, but a little cry from the cradle stopped her, and she said-- "Come, nurse, what is it? Come, the baby is waiting for you." Then, like one waking from a dream, Esther said: "If my baby is all right, ma'am, I'll come back, but if he wants me, I'll have to look after him first." "You forget that I'm paying you fifteen shillings a week. I pay you for nursing my baby; you take my money, that's sufficient." "Yes, I do take your money, ma'am. But the housemaid has told me that you had two wet-nurses before me, and that both their babies died, so I cannot stop here now that mine's ill. Everyone for her own; you can't blame me. I'm sorry for yours--poor little thing, she was getting on nicely too." "But, Waters, you won't leave my baby. It's cruel of you. If I could nurse it myself----" "Why couldn't you, ma'am? You look fairly strong and healthy." Esther spoke in her quiet, stolid way, finding her words unconsciously. "You don't know what you're saying, nurse; you can't.... You've forgotten yourself. Next time I engage a nurse I'll try to get one who has lost her baby, and then there'll be no bother." "It is a life for a life--more than that, ma'am--two lives for a life; and now the life of my boy is asked for." A strange look passed over Mrs. Rivers' face. She knew, of course, that she stood well within the law, that she was doing no more than a hundred other fashionable women were doing at the same moment; but this plain girl had a plain way of putting things, and she did not care for it to be publicly known that the life of her child had been bought with the lives of two poor children. But her temper was getting the better of her.