"What is it, my boy? What is it, my blessed darling? You _shall_ have
your dinner! Give her all, Ethel. There are the keys of my desk, there's
my watch, there are my rings. Let her take my all. The monster! The child
must live! It can't go away in such a storm as this. Give me a cloak, a
parasol, anything--I'll go forth and get a lodging. I'll beg my bread
from house to house, if this fiend refuses me. Eat the biscuits, dear! A
little of the syrup, Alfred darling; it's very nice, love, and come to
your old mother--your poor old mother."
Alfred roared out, "No, it's not n--ice; it's n-a-a-sty! I won't have
syrup. I _will_ have dinner." The mother, whose embraces the child
repelled with infantine kicks, plunged madly at the bells, rang them all
four vehemently, and ran downstairs towards the parlour, whence Miss
Honeyman was issuing.
The good lady had not at first known the names of her lodgers, until one
of the nurses intrusted with the care of Master Alfred's dinner informed
her that she was entertaining Lady Ann Newcome; and that the pretty girl
was the fair Miss Ethel; the little sick boy, the little Alfred of whom
his cousin spoke, and of whom Clive had made a hundred little drawings in
his rude way, as he drew everybody. Then bidding Sally run off to St.
James Street for a chicken, she saw it put on the spit, and prepared a
bread sauce, and composed a batter-pudding, as she only knew how to make
batter puddings.
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