No Thoroughfare | Page 4

own sake, you are much mistaken in me if you think that I will do it for
money. What is it you want?"
"You are one of the nurses or attendants at the Hospital; I saw you
leave to-night and last night."

"Yes, I am. I am Sally."
"There is a pleasant patience in your face which makes me believe that
very young children would take readily to you."
"God bless 'em! So they do."
The lady lifts her veil, and shows a face no older than the nurse's. A
face far more refined and capable than hers, but wild and worn with
sorrow.
"I am the miserable mother of a baby lately received under your care. I
have a prayer to make to you."
Instinctively respecting the confidence which has drawn aside the veil,
Sally--whose ways are all ways of simplicity and spontaneity-- replaces
it, and begins to cry.
"You will listen to my prayer?" the lady urges. "You will not be deaf to
the agonised entreaty of such a broken suppliant as I am?"
"O dear, dear, dear!" cries Sally. "What shall I say, or can say! Don't
talk of prayers. Prayers are to be put up to the Good Father of All, and
not to nurses and such. And there! I am only to hold my place for half a
year longer, till another young woman can be trained up to it. I am
going to be married. I shouldn't have been out last night, and I shouldn't
have been out to-night, but that my Dick (he is the young man I am
going to be married to) lies ill, and I help his mother and sister to watch
him. Don't take on so, don't take on so!"
"O good Sally, dear Sally," moans the lady, catching at her dress
entreatingly. "As you are hopeful, and I am hopeless; as a fair way in
life is before you, which can never, never, be before me; as you can
aspire to become a respected wife, and as you can aspire to become a
proud mother, as you are a living loving woman, and must die; for
GOD'S sake hear my distracted petition!"
"Deary, deary, deary ME!" cries Sally, her desperation culminating in

the pronoun, "what am I ever to do? And there! See how you turn my
own words back upon me. I tell you I am going to be married, on
purpose to make it clearer to you that I am going to leave, and therefore
couldn't help you if I would, Poor Thing, and you make it seem to my
own self as if I was cruel in going to be married and not helping you. It
ain't kind. Now, is it kind, Poor Thing?"
"Sally! Hear me, my dear. My entreaty is for no help in the future. It
applies to what is past. It is only to be told in two words."
"There! This is worse and worse," cries Sally, "supposing that I
understand what two words you mean."
"You do understand. What are the names they have given my poor
baby? I ask no more than that. I have read of the customs of the place.
He has been christened in the chapel, and registered by some surname
in the book. He was received last Monday evening. What have they
called him?"
Down upon her knees in the foul mud of the by-way into which they
have strayed--an empty street without a thoroughfare giving on the dark
gardens of the Hospital--the lady would drop in her passionate entreaty,
but that Sally prevents her.
"Don't! Don't! You make me feel as if I was setting myself up to be
good. Let me look in your pretty face again. Put your two hands in
mine. Now, promise. You will never ask me anything more than the
two words?"
"Never! Never!"
"You will never put them to a bad use, if I say them?"
"Never! Never!"
"Walter Wilding."
The lady lays her face upon the nurse's breast, draws her close in her

embrace with both arms, murmurs a blessing and the words, "Kiss him
for me!" and is gone.
Day of the month and year, the first Sunday in October, one thousand
eight hundred and forty-seven. London Time by the great clock of Saint
Paul's, half-past one in the afternoon. The clock of the Hospital for
Foundling Children is well up with the Cathedral to- day. Service in the
chapel is over, and the Foundling children are at dinner.
There are numerous lookers-on at the dinner, as the custom is. There
are two or three governors, whole families from the congregation,
smaller groups of both sexes, individual stragglers of various degrees.
The bright autumnal sun strikes freshly into the wards; and the
heavy-framed windows through which it shines, and