Edith Hillis, trotting meekly behind her as Mrs. Brown, wore a baggy old long skirt, a bandanna tied around her waist, one around her neck and another on her head. She only had one carving-knife. But the lovely Alice did not deign to look at her parents. She gazed sadly out over the audience, while Marie went on to tell how—
As Alice was sitting at her window-sill one day A beautiful young gentleman he chanced to pass that way, A sorter at the Custom-house, it was his daily road— (The Custom-house was fifteen minutes walk from her abode).
At this point the hero crossed the stage dashingly, with a cane under his arm. It was Adelaide, in a plaid cap, a waxed mustache, and a very precise duster which reached her heels. A pipe (she said afterwards it had a dreadful taste) stuck from one corner of her mouth.
Gentle Alice sighed deeply, and so did her lover, who became aware of her presence with a tragic start. He halted, waved to her, sighed with his hand on his heart, and looked altogether very lovelorn. Gentle Alice did not notice him at first, but she gradually seemed to yield, and finally languished softly at him—and winked. So did he. Then he kissed his hands at her and went off reluctantly to work, while Alice wiped away her tears with a large bandanna such as her parents had worn. (They were the historic bandannas which had served Winona and Louise so well on their peddling trip.)
The ballad went on to relate how presently Alice’s conscience bothered her. So she asked the Brown’s family confessor about it,
The priest by whom their little crimes were carefully assessed.
Here Louise appeared, in the brown bathrobe, with its hood pulled up over her head, and sandals on. Alice threw herself at his feet, and waved her hands in grief.
“Oh, father,” Gentle Alice said, “’Twould grieve you, would it not, To find that I have been a most disreputable lot?”
Louise assumed a benign expression and listened while Alice confessed her sins. Marie stopped, while Winona herself spoke:
I assisted dear mamma in cutting up a little lad, I helped papa to steal a little kiddy from its dad— I planned a little burglary and forged a little check And slew a little baby for the coral on its neck!
But Father Brown seemed inclined to be forgiving, and with a few remarks, ended,