Her poor white wasted hand lay dead on the living baby's arm.
"I answered all the clergyman's questions quite straightforward, telling him everything I knew from beginning to end.

When I'd done, Peggy starts up from the bundle and says, 'Mind, sir, whatever you do, the child's not to be took away from this person here, and sent to the workhouse.
The mother give it to her on that very bed, and I'm a witness of it.' 'And I promised to be a mother to the baby, sir,' says I.He turns round to me, and praises me for what I done, and says nobody shall take it away from me, unless them as can show their right comes forward to claim it.

'But now,' says he, 'we must think of other things.

We must try and find out something about this poor woman who has died in such a melancholy way.' "It was easier to say that than to do it.

The poor thing had nothing with her but a change of linen for herself and the child, and that gave us no clue.