This special pleading had little or no effect on White. He was puzzling his brain what to do. Once or twice he thought of repudiating the responsibility altogether, but he was far too good-natured for that. Then he suggested that Luke should take the child back and leave him to think it over, but he soon discovered that such a delay was impracticable. ‘Mother said,’ explained Uncle Luke, firmly (his sister-in-law, it will be remembered, had always been addressed as ‘mother’ by her husband, and by all the house)--‘mother said I was to leave her along o’ you, cause you was her best friend; and mother said you’d never grudge her the wittles what she eat, for you were a gentleman born. Them were her own words. You’d never grudge her the wittles what she eat, for you was a gentleman born.’ ‘How old is she?’ asked White, desperately, not that he had any special reason for asking, but because, in his perplexity, he hardly knew what to say. Uncle Luke cocked his eye, calculating, and after due deliberation replied-- ‘Mother says it be just eight year come Whit-Monday since you brung her to us. She remembers the year well, mother does, ’cause ’twas the year when her cousin Jim he was drowned off Woolwich Pier, after he had deserted and was running away for his precious life; and they held a ’quest upon him, and said he was drownded accidental, and had hisself to blame.’ ‘Between eight and nine years old,’ muttered White, pursuing his own feeble reflections. ‘Is there no place where she could be put? No person who, for a small consideration, would take her in?’ Uncle Luke shook his head dolefully. He had never questioned for a moment but that White would give the child a welcome, and he was quite incapable of conceiving the manifold objections there might be to her immediate adoption. Things were at this juncture when Madame de Bemy, who occupied the adjoining house, and from whom White rented the studio, came in smiling. She was a stout little old lady, with a very profound respect for her tenant, who had been useful to her in many ways, as indeed he was almost invariably to everybody with whom he came in close contact. To his surprise she cut the Gordian knot by offering to take care of the child on White’s behalf. All this time Madeline had been listening with growing suspicion. At last the whole truth dawned upon her, and she burst into lamentation. Clinging to Uncle Luke, she cried that she would never leave him, and that she would return to Grayfleet in his company. It was an exciting scene, over which we have no intention to linger.