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 frequency of the movement, Prudence examined her more closely. As she turned up the robe, Augusta stopped crying. There on her red-mottled limb was a nasty blue mark, where the irritated caretaker had given her a pinch.

Under other circumstances the tenderhearted Prudence would have remonstrated with the woman on her cruelty to a helpless infant. As it was, she did not dare risk a scene, so took an opportunity to whisper sympathy to Augusta, and implore her to be patient.

After many anxious glances at the clock, the hands marked the hour named by Mrs. Brown, and, at the moment, a bustling, fresh-complexioned woman of about five-and-fifty, stout and respectably dressed, hurried into the room, and, first casting a comprehensive glance around, walked over to Prudence, and said,

"Excuse me, ma'am, but are you here with reference to a child?"

"Are you Mrs. Brown?" asked Prudence, favourably impressed by her appearance of cleanliness and her businesslike manner.

"Yes, ma'am, I ham Mrs. Brown, otherwise X. Y. Z.—'good Mrs. Brown,' they calls me