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deduct that same extra half-shilling from her year’s wage. She agreed to do it and we had a contract.

Four
    W hen I walked into Mrs. Holcomb’s bedchamber, I think she would have liked to hug me around my neck, though she’d never set eyes on me before. She was that glad to see me. She was sweet enough, as was her baby, though my Joey was ever so much handsomer.
    “Oh, Susan,” she said, friendly right off, “this is the baby! His name is William,” she said as she handed him over. He was tiny and grayish, though his eyes, I noted, seemed to fix quite well on my face for a mite so young. I told her so and she smiled at me from her bed where she’d been holding him.
    “Oh, Susan, do you see that too? And you will take good care of him?”
    “Of course I will, ma’am,” said I with a curtsy. We were alone in the room, she and I, or else I might have been too shy to say what was next. “Ma’am, do you think he might be hungry now? I have been traveling a long way and . . .” And then I spoke no more because my blouse spoke for me. I felt in somewhat of pain and I needed to be milked, to say it blunt.
    “Oh, do try and see,” she said, sitting up in her bed. “May I watch?”
    I felt shy at a lady’s eye on me like that, but I needed that baby to suck or else I’d be drenched in no time. So I sat in a chair and undid my blouse and my shift and gave the baby to suck and suck away he did, the dear. I looked down upon him in his bliss and it made me smile and weep, together. Then I heard a sniff from the bed.
    “What can be the matter, ma’am?” said I alarmed. I made to give the baby back at which he started to squall, having his meal interrupted.
    “No, Susan, let him drink,” sobbed the lady. “I am only jealous. I meant to nurse him myself, but the pain in my tit was more than I could bear. He’s been living all this time off the nurse next door who our neighbors said we could share til we found someone of our own. I meant to nurse him myself, I’m sure I did. I’m sure there is something wrong with me. I think it may be the tightness of my corsets. . . . I have always liked them quite tightly laced. Perhaps they shaped me in some way that did harm.” Her tears flowed.
    I thought to tell her that it always hurt at first but then the pain subsides. I had had it from my mother, who had told me so, and I found it to be true. I thought to say that a compress of cold tea leaves would ease the pain and toughen the teats, but then again I thought not to. My employment depended on her needing me, after all. Now that I had been parted from my own darling and landed here in this lady’s house, I might as well perform my duties. After all, if I went home, my father, now that he had the idea that city people paid as well as they did for a nurse, would find me another spot in a breath’s time. At least here, the mistress seemed kind.
    Later that night, as I sat in my room—my own, though tiny!—the master of the house came to meet me. He was a nice-looking man with handsome ginger whiskers but he said this, “Susan, is it? Yes, well, we are very glad you’ve come and that Baby William has taken to you as well as he has.” I nodded and waited. “Lucinda . . . Mrs. Holcomb . . . feels greatly her inability. I don’t wish it to depress her. I ask you only, Susan, to use discretion in the performance of your duties.” He said it kindly but he looked straight at me as he did and I understood. “Yes, sir,” I said. “Of course.” And that was that.
    Mrs. Holcomb would have liked to have kept the cradle in her bedchamber, but Mr. Holcomb could not sleep through the night because of the baby’s crying. She wept more tears when the cradle was moved to the lovely nursery all set up.
    “Oh, but Mrs. Holcomb,” said I as I set the nappies out and the lard, “this is quite a good thing, it is. It means he’s growing so fast, you see, that he cries during the night. He does it because he’s