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please help me? I will pay you, I promise, more than your wages here. Find me a cloth for him and I'll give you ..." She looked about the room again and then to her own clothing. "I'll give you this lace handkerchief ... and five shillings and--"
    "Miss, I don't think--"
    "My name is Lucilla," she said. "Lucilla Overly. My father is Lord Sherman Allyn, the historian. You've heard of him?"
    I had not, of course.
    "And this baby is sure to die if you don't help me. We are supposed to be moving on from here in an hour or so, after the horses are fed and"--she barked a laugh that were not a pretty sound--"... and the baby has rested with me, that's what Bates said. That I should lie down to sleep!"
    "Perhaps you should do that, miss." The baby's cries
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    were gathering strength, so my suggestion were ridiculous and we both knew it. I picked him up, I couldn't not. As if I could leave Nan wailing or anyone else.
    I tucked him into the bodice of my apron.
    "May I use a stocking, miss?"
    She rummaged in the case and found one. She watched while I strapped the baby more securely to my chest.
    "I'll take him for one hour, miss, and you have your little lie-down. But he'll soon need feeding, too, won't he?"
    She winced. "The wet nurse ... I didn't think ... I've stopped my own milk weeks ago."
    I spun around and marched out the door. She were a certain danger to her own child.
    In the hallway I could hear Mrs. Forbes calling up the back stairs, "Mary? Wherever is that lazy girl? Mary? "
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    ELIZA 1877 Telling About Mary
    Bates come in, smirking at Cook and Eliza. "You're looking at the hero of the day," he said, plucking up an apple from the bowl on the table and rubbing it to a shine on his sleeve.
    "What's got you so pleased with yourself?" asked Mrs. Wiggins. "Did you collect poor Miss Lucilla from that husband we all knew was a brute?"
    "I did. As well as her wretched baby, whose squawking never stopped from the front door in Waterford to the shack of a country inn where I performed my heroic act." His teeth bit into the apple with such a crunch Eliza could taste the juice herself.
    "And what was that?" she asked. "Did you drown the brat?"
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    "Eliza, you hush!" Mrs. Wiggins always scolded for disrespect, but it made Bates laugh so Eliza could not resist.
    But this time, "No," with that smirk again. "I found a lass." If his mustache had been long enough, he'd have been twirling it. "'Hello?' I says to myself," said Bates. "'What we've got here is a damsel in distress....' Two damsels, really, with Miss L. on the one side and this baby-taming wench on the other. There's nothing like a damsel to turn a man into a hero, is there? So I brought her fine green eyes along to Neville Street."
    Eliza swore she could almost see his trousers take shape in the front. But then he caught her eyes looking down there and he smirked extra, making a little thrust with his hips in a way Mrs. Wiggins wouldn't see. Eliza quick turned her face to peeling the apples and vowed to hate this girl, whoever she might be. Bates was a brute the way he played with her, but oh, what he could do with his hands in a dark place!
    She wouldn't be the one to tell him all his fancy dancing was for naught.
    "You're a little behind the news, Mr. Bates," said Mrs. Wiggins. "There's already a nursemaid in residence."
    "And a sour cow she is too," muttered Eliza.
    "Eliza Pigeon, you watch your sass."
    "Oh no," said Bates. He dropped his apple core into the bin. "Who's she, then?"
    "Her name," said Mrs. Wiggins, "is Miss Hollow. Miss Judith Hollow."
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    Bates sat down and shot his eyes toward the ceiling, as if he could see straight through and up to where this lass of his was likely being tossed out the door.
    Eliza's intention to despise Mary Finn was flummoxed when she finally come downstairs. Eliza saw a skimpy young thing, so fresh from the country you could smell the dung and the blossoms right off her. Carroty hair and eyes more the color of old parsley than real