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Peter and Flossy heard them at the other side of the wall, and knowing that they were much louder and more piercing than usual, they both got up and, hand-in-hand, went to the nursery door. Snip-snap also followed them, but unwillingly, and with his tail between his legs. The door on this unfortunate night was locked, and the children could not get in. Martha slept on, and the baby screamed on, and presently poor Peter and Flossy heard Mr Martin get up and ring his bell violently. Mrs Potts was also heard to open her room door and come out on the landing, and sniff in a very disagreeable way, and go back again. Flossy’s heart quite beat with terror, and Peter said:

‘It’s all up, Flossy; they’ll all know about our baby in the morning.’

‘What’ll they do?’ asked Flossy in an awe-struck voice.

‘I don’t know,’ answered Peter. ‘I daren’t think. Something bad I ‘spect.’

Then the two children crept back to their beds, and Flossy cried herself to sleep.

CHAPTER II.

‘You must answer me this question very decidedly, ma’am: am I to go, or the baby? Is my night’s sleep to be again disturbed by the peevish wails of a troublesome infant? I must know at once, madam, what you intend to do? Miss Jenkins, over the way, has offered me her front parlour with the bedroom behind, and her terms are lower than yours. You have but to say the word, ma’am, and my bed will be well aired, and the room at Miss Jenkins’s all comfortable for me to-night. I don’t want you to turn that infant away, oh dear me! no, but I must decide my own plans; stay in the house with a baby, and have my sleep broken, I will not!’

The speaker was Mr Martin. He had come into Mrs Franklin’s little back parlour and expressed his mind very freely. The poor woman was standing up and regarding her best lodger with a puzzled and almost despairing air. She did not know that Flossy had crept into the room and was hiding herself behind her chair, and that Flossy’s little face had grown even more white and despairing than her own.

‘Give me until to-night, sir,’ she said. ‘Mrs Potts has also been in and complaining about the poor child. She’s an orphan child, and my husband’s niece, but we are in no way bound to support her. I would not treat her badly, sir, but there are limits; and, of course, as you say, your night’s sleep must not be broken. Rather than that should happen, Mr Martin, I would send the child to the workhouse, for, of course, she has no legal claim on us. If you will be so kind, sir, as to give me until to-morrow morning, I will then let you know what I have decided to do with the baby, and I faithfully promise that you are not to be disturbed to-night, sir.’

‘That is all right,’ said Mr Martin, with a mollified air. ‘Of course it is not to be expected that an old bachelor such as I am should be worried by an infant’s screams. The screams of a baby have to me an appalling sound. Do what you think well with the child, ma’am, and let me know in the morning; only I may as well state that I think the workhouse an extreme measure.’

Then Mr Martin left the house. Mrs Franklin followed him out of the room, and Flossy crept slowly back to the nursery.

Mrs Franklin did not notice her little daughter, and Flossy did not venture to address her mother. She came into the room where Peter and Snip-snap were doing their utmost for the baby. Peter had her in his arms, and was walking up and down with her, and Snip-snap was bounding after a ball and tossing it into the air for her benefit.