The question was not an easy one to answer. Amelius hesitated. Mrs. Farnaby insisted on a reply. “Did you see anything?” she reiterated Amelius owned that he had seen something. She turned away from him, and looked into the fire. Her firm full tones sank so low, when she spoke next, that he could barely hear them. “Was it something belonging to a child?” “Yes.” “Was it a baby’s frock and cap? Answer me. We have gone too far to go back. I don’t want apologies or explanations--I want, Yes or No.” “Yes.” There was an interval of silence. She never moved; she still looked into fire--looked, as if all her past life was pictured there in the burning coals. “Do you despise me?” she asked at last, very quietly. “As God hears me, I am only sorry for you!” Amelius answered. Another woman would have melted into tears. This woman still looked into the fire--and that was all. “What a good fellow!” she said to herself, “what a good fellow he is!” There was another pause. She turned towards him again as abruptly as she had turned away. “I had hoped to spare you, and to spare myself,” she said. “If the miserable truth has come out, it is through no curiosity of yours, and (God knows!) against every wish of mine. I don’t know if you really felt like a friend towards me before--you must be my friend now. Don’t speak! I know I can trust you. One last word, Amelius, about my lost child. You doubt whether I should recognize her, if she stood before me now. That might be quite true, if I had only my own poor hopes and anxieties to guide me. But I have something else to guide me--and, after what has passed between us, you may as well know what it is: it might even, by accident, guide you. Don’t alarm yourself; it’s nothing distressing this time. How can I explain it?” she went on; pausing, and speaking in some perplexity to herself. “It would be easier to show it--and why not?” She addressed herself to Amelius once more. “I’m a strange creature,” she resumed. “First, I worry you about my own affairs--then I puzzle you--then I make you sorry for me--and now (would you think it?) I am going to amuse you! Amelius, are you an admirer of pretty feet?” Amelius had heard of men (in books) who had found reason to doubt whether their own ears were not deceiving them. For the first time, he began to understand those men, and to sympathize with them. He admitted, in a certain bewildered way, that he was an admirer of pretty feet--and waited for what was to come next. “When a woman has a pretty hand,” Mrs. Farnaby proceeded; “she is ready enough to show it. When she goes out to a ball, she favours you with a view of her bosom, and a part of her back. Now tell me! If there is no impropriety in a naked bosom--where is the impropriety in a naked foot?” Amelius agreed, like a man in a dream. “Where, indeed!” he remarked--and waited again for what was to come next. “Look out of the window,” said Mrs. Farnaby.