Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 1.djvu/32

 'You'll find he's big enough, I expect, when he begins to go,' Mrs. Bowerbank remarked, tranquilly; and she added that now she saw how he was turned out she couldn't but feel that the other side was to be considered. In her effort to be discreet, on account of his being present (and so precociously attentive), she became slightly enigmatical; but Miss Pynsent gathered her meaning, which was that it was very true the child would take everything in and keep it: but at the same time it was precisely his being so attractive that made it a kind of sin not to gratify the poor woman, who, if she knew what he looked like to-day, wouldn't forgive his adoptive mamma for not producing him. 'Certainly, in her place, I should go off easier if I had seen them curls,' Mrs. Bowerbank declared, with a flight of maternal imagination which brought her to her feet, while Miss Pynsent felt that she was leaving her dreadfully ploughed up, and without any really fertilising seed having been sown. The little dressmaker packed the child upstairs to tidy himself for his tea, and while she accompanied her visitor to the door told her that if she would have a little more patience with her she would think a day or two longer what was best and write to her when she should have decided. Mrs. Bowerbank continued to move in a realm superior to poor Miss Pynsent's vacillations and timidities, and her impartiality gave her hostess a high idea of her respectability; but the way was a little smoothed when, after Amanda had moaned once more, on the threshold, helplessly and irrelevantly, 'Ain't it a pity she's so bad?' the ponderous lady from the prison rejoined, in those tones which seemed meant to resound through corridors of stone, 'I assure you there's a many that's much worse!'