f it, too! But I swear, I''ll settle a half my fortune on her; and Susan shall have the rest. She shall have it, if you''ll only take her for me now, and bring her up honest, and keep her from knowing about her inheritance till she has grown up poor and can feel the worth of it! Don''t you have," she says, "some motherless baby we can give to my father in Susan''s place? Don''t you? Don''t you? For God''s sake, say you do! There''s fifty pounds in the pocket of my gown. You shall have it!— I shall send you more!—if you''ll only do this thing for me, and not tell a living soul you''ve done it.''"
Perhaps there is movement in the room below, in the street—I do not know, I do not hear it if there is. I keep my gaze on Mrs Sucksby''s flushed face, on her eyes, her lips.—''Now, here was a thing,'' she is saying, ''to be asked to do. Wouldn''t you say, dear girl? Here was a thing, all right. I think I never thought harder or quicker before in all my life. And what I said at last was: "Keep your money. Keep your fifty pounds. I don''t want it. What I want, is this: Your pa is a gentleman, and gents are tricky. I''ll keep your baby, but I want for you to write me out a paper, saying all you mean to do, and signing it, and sealing it; and that makes it binding." "I''ll do it!" she says, straight off. "I''ll do it!" And we come in here, and I fetch her a bit of paper and ink, and she sets it all down—just as I have told you, that Susan Lilly is her own child, though left with me, and that the fortunes are to be cut, and so on—and she folds it and seals it with the ring off her finger, and puts on the front that it ain''t to be opened till the day her daughter turns eighteen. Twenty-one, she wanted to make it: but my mind was running ahead, even as she was writing, and I said it must be eighteen—for we oughtn''t to risk the girls taking husbands, before they knew what was what.'' She smiles. ''She liked that. She thanked me for it.