E. Nesbit

“ Faustina turned her full eyes from the indelicate spectacle. The pale woman watched as though she did not want to watch. It is not manners to stare, but there are things stronger than manners.
The three women sat in silence till the child, satisfied, sighed and slept. Then the mother adjusted its cloak. Her coarse, foolish face, bent over the baby, took on for an instant that beauty which comes to women’s faces thus inclined. ”

“ But there was nothing to see save the empty waiting room and Faustina’s littered luggage.
And in a corner of a third-class carriage of that opportune up train, a woman in black, with red eyes and thin hands, clasped closely, delicately, passionately, a little, stolen baby. It is quite easy to become a thief, all in a moment, without meaning to, if only you want a thing badly enough. ”

“ The third woman was very young, thickset, short, with the eyes of a frightened deer and the face of a florid rabbit. She was dressed as servant girls dress on their days out, in a hot brown costume and the most unbecoming blue hat in Europe. ”