"You've only yourself to thank. There's no more to be said."

"No, ma'am. I understand why I'm leaving. It's because of Baby. You don't
want to 'ave 'im, and I think you might have said so before."

That day month Maggie packed her brown-painted wooden box and the cradle
and the perambulator. The greengrocer took them away on a handcart.
Through the drawing-room window Harriett saw Maggie going away, carrying
the baby, pink and round in his white-knitted cap, his fat hips bulging
over her arm under his white shawl. The gate fell to behind them. The
click struck at Harriett's heart.

Three months later Maggie turned up again in a black hat and gown for
best, red-eyed and humble.

"I came to see, ma'am, whether you'd take me back, as I 'aven't got Baby
now."

"You haven't got him?"

"'E died, ma'am, last month. I'd put him with a woman in the country. She
was highly recommended to me. Very highly recommended she was, and I paid
her six shillings a week. But I think she must 'ave done something she
shouldn't."

"Oh, Maggie, you don't mean she was cruel to him?"

"No, ma'am. She was very fond of him. Everybody was fond of Baby. But
whether it was the food she gave him or what, 'e was that wasted you