[Illustration: Cover art]

ZOE

BY THE AUTHOR OF

'LADDIE, ' 'DON, ' 'POMONA, ' 'BELLE, ' 'PHOEBE'S HERO, ' 'MISS TOOSEY'SMISSION, ' 'TIP CAT, ' ETC. 

[Transcriber's note: The British Library Integrated Catalogue citesEvelyn Whitaker as the author of this book. ]

LONDON: 38 Soho Square. W. 1

W. & R. CHAMBERS, LIMITED

EDINBURGH: 339 High Street

1890

[Transcriber's note: The source book had varying page headers. Theyhave been collected at the start of each chapter as an introductoryparagraph, and here as the Table of Contents. ]

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I. 

The Christening--An Outlandish Name--The Organist'sMistake--Farm-work--Tom and Bill--The Baby--Baby and All

CHAPTER II. 

Mr Robins--Village Choirs--Edith--An Elopement--A Father's Sorrow--AnUnhappy Pair--The Wanderer's Return--Father!--A Daughter'sEntreater--No Favourable Answer--A Sleepless Pillow

CHAPTER III. 

Something on the Doorstep--Bill Gray--Is That a Cat?--She's LikeMother--A Baby's Shoe--Jane Restless

CHAPTER IV. 

Village Evidence--'Gray' on the Brain--Too Well He Knew--Mr Robins andthe Baby--He Had Not Done Badly

CHAPTER V. 

Jane Hard at Work--Clothes for the Baby--Jane Returns--Jane Singingover her Work--Jane's Selfish Absorption--For a Poor Person'sChild--The Organist in Church

CHAPTER VI. 

The Good Baby--Mr Robins Comes and Goes--A Secret Power--Mr RobinsHappy--A Naughty Tiresome Gal!--The Gypsy Child

CHAPTER VII. 

Gray Taken to the Hospital--Bill and the Baby--Mrs Gray HomeAgain--Edith, Come Home!

CHAPTER VIII. 

Preparation--The Room Furnished--Mrs Gray at Work--The Baby Gone--TheGypsy Mother--The Gypsy's Story--A Foolish Fancy--Something HasHappened--The Real Baby

ZOE. 

CHAPTER I. 

The Christening--An Outlandish Name--The Organist'sMistake--Farm-work--Tom and Bill--The Baby--Baby and All

'Hath this child been already baptised, or no?'

'No, she ain't; leastwise we don't know as how she 've been or no, sowe thought as we 'd best have her done. '

The clergyman who was taking Mr Clifford's duty at Downside for thatSunday, thought that this might be the usual undecided way of answeringamong the natives, and proceeded with the service. There were twoother babies also brought that afternoon, one of which was cryinglustily, so that it was not easy to hear what the sponsors answered;and, moreover, the officiating clergyman was a young man, and theprospect of holding that screaming, red-faced, little object made himtoo nervous and anxious to get done with it to stop and make furtherinquiries. 

The woman who returned this undecided answer was an elderly woman, witha kind, sunburnt, honest face, very much heated just now, andembarrassed too; for the baby in her arms prevented her getting at herpocket handkerchief to wipe the perspiration from her brow and pullingher bonnet on to its proper position on her head. The man beside herwas also greatly embarrassed, and kept shuffling his large hob-nailedshoes together, and turning his hat round and round in his fingers. 

I think that really that hat was the chief cause of his discomfort, forhe was so accustomed to have it on his head that he could not feelquite himself without it; and, indeed, his wife could hardly recognisehim, as she had been accustomed to see him wearing it indoors and outduring the twenty years of their married life; pushed back for meals orsmoking, but always on his head, except in bed, and even there, reportsays, on cold winter nights, he had recourse to it to keep off thedraught from that cracked pane in the window. His face, like hiswife's, was weatherbeaten, and of the same broad, flat type as hers, with small, surprised, dazzled-looking, pale blue eyes, and a tangle ofgrizzled light hair under his chin. He was noticeable for the greensmock-frock he wore, a garment which is so rapidly disappearing beforethe march of civilisation, and giving place to the ill-cut, ill-madecoat of shoddy cloth, which is fondly thought to resemble the squire's. 

The christening party was completed by a hobbledehoy lad of aboutsixteen, who tried to cover his invincible shyness by a grin, and tokeep his foolish eyes from the row of farm boys in the aisle, whosecritical glances he felt in every pore. He was so like both father andmother, that there was no mistaking his parentage; but when Mrs Graytook off the shepherd's-plaid shawl in which the baby was wrapped, sucha little dark head and swarthy face were exposed to view as might havemade intelligent spectators (if there were any in Downside church thatafternoon, which I doubt) reflect on the laws of heredity and reversionto original types. 

'Name this child!'

The clergyman had got successfully through his business with theroaring George Augustus and the whimpering Alberta Florence, and hadnow the little, quiet, brown-faced baby in his arms. Even a young andunmarried man was fain to confess that it was an unusually prettylittle face that lay against his surplice, with a pointed chin, andmore eyebrows and lashes than most young babies possess, and with darkeyes that looked up at him with a certain intelligence, recognisableeven to an unprejudiced observer. 

'Name this child!'

Mrs Gray had taken advantage of this opportunity to mop her foreheadwith her blue and white pocket handkerchief, and wrestle with herbonnet's unconquerable tendency to slip off behind, and the clergymanpassed the question on to her husband, who fixed his eye on abluebottle buzzing in one of the windows, and jerked out what soundedlike 'Joe. '

'I thought it was a girl, ' whispered the clergyman. 'Joe, did you say?'

'No, it ain't that 'zactly. Here, 'Liza, can't you tell the gentleman?You knows best what it be. '

The next attempt sounded like 'Sue, ' and the clergyman suggested Susanas the name, but that would not do. 

'Zola' seemed to him, though not a reader of French novels, unsuitable, and 'Zero, ' too, he could not quite appreciate. 

'I can't make it out, an outlandish sorter name!' said Gray, with aterrible inclination to put on his hat in the excitement of the moment, only checked by a timely nudge from his wife's elbow; 'here, ain't yougot it wrote down somewheres? Can't you show it up?'

And after a lengthened rummage in a voluminous pocket, and theproduction of several articles irrelevant to the occasion--a thimble, abit of ginger, and part of a tract--Mrs Gray brought to light a pieceof paper, on which was written the name 'Zoe. '

'Zoe, I baptise thee'----

A sudden crash on the organ-pedals followed these words. Mr Robins, the organist, had, perhaps, been asleep and let his foot slip on to thepedals, or, perhaps, he had thought there was no wind in the instrumentand that he could put his foot down with impunity. He was plainly verymuch ashamed of himself for what had happened, and it was only rightthat he should be, for, of course, it made all the school childrengiggle, and a good many of their elders too, who should have knownbetter. 

The boy who blew the organ declared that he turned quite red and benthis head over the keys as if he were examining something on them, andhe was evidently nervous and upset, for he made ever so many mistakesin the concluding parts of the service, and, to the great surprise andto the satisfaction of the blower, cut the voluntary at the endunusually short, ending it in an abrupt and discordant way, which, I amsorry to say, the blower described as 'a 'owl, ' though any shock thatthe boy's musical taste sustained was compensated for by the feelingthat he would be at home at least ten minutes earlier than usual to tea. 

Now it so happened that Mr Robins was in the vestry when thechristening party came in to give the particulars about the babies tobe entered in the register. He had come to fetch a music-book, which, however, it appeared after all had been left at home; but the clergymanwas glad of his help in making out the story of the little Zoe who hadjust been baptised. 

I have spoken before of intelligent observers noticing and drawingarguments from the entire want of likeness between Zoe and her parents;but all the observers on this occasion whether intelligent or not, withthe exception of the officiating clergyman, were quite aware that Zoewas not the Grays' baby, but was a foundling child picked up one nightby Gray in his garden. 

Of her antecedents nothing was known, and, of course, any sensiblepeople would have sent her to the workhouse--every one agreed on thispoint and told the Grays so; and yet, I think, half the women who wereso positive and severe on Mrs Gray's folly would have done just thesame. 

We do not half of us know how kind-hearted we are till we are tried, orperhaps it is our foolishness that we do not realise. 

Gray was only a labourer with twelve shillings a week and a couple ofpounds more at harvest; and, of course, in bad weather there was nowork and no wages, which is the rule among the agricultural labourersabout Downside, as in many other parts, so did not present itself as agrievance to Gray's mind, though, to be sure, in winter or wet seasonsit was a hard matter to get along. But it was neighbours' fare, andnone of them felt hardly used, for Farmer Benson, what with bad seasonsand cattle plague, was not much better off than they were, and the menknew it. 

But out of these wages it was hardly to be expected of the mostprovident of people that anything could be laid by for old age or arainy day; indeed, there seemed so many rainy days in the present thatit was not easy to give much thought to those in the future. Of coursetoo the local provident club had come to utter and hopeless grief. Isthere any country place where this has not been the case? Gray hadpaid into it regularly for years and had gone every Whitmonday to itsdinner, his one voluntary holiday during the year, on which occasion hetook too much beer as a sort of solemn duty connected with hismembership. When it collapsed he was too old to join another club, andso was left stranded. He bore it very philosophically; indeed, I thinkit was only on Whitmonday that he felt it at all, as it seemed strangeand unnatural to go to bed quite sober on that day, as he did on allother days of the year. 

On all other occasions he was a thoroughly sober man, perhaps, however, more from necessity than choice, as the beer supplied by Farmer Bensonin the hayfield was of a quality on which, as the men said, you got 'noforrarder' if you drank a hogshead, and Gray had no money to spare fromthe necessaries of life to spend on luxury, even the luxury of gettingdrunk. 

He was in one way better off than his neighbours from a worldly pointof view, in that he had not a large family as most of them were blessedwith; for children are a blessing, a gift and heritage that cometh ofthe Lord, even when they cluster round a cold hearth and a scantyboard. But Gray had only two sons, the elder of whom, Tom, we haveseen at Zoe's christening, and who had been at work four years, havingmanaged at twelve to scramble into the fifth standard, and at once leftschool triumphantly, and now can neither read nor write, having cleanforgotten everything drummed into his head, but earns three shillingsand sixpence a week going along with Farmer Benson's horses, from fiveo'clock in the morning till six in the evening, the long wet furrowsand heavy ploughed land having made havoc of his legs, as such workdoes with most plough-boys. 

The younger boy, Bill, is six years younger and still at school, andhaving been a delicate child, or as his mother puts it, 'enjoying badhealth, ' is not promising for farm-work, and, being fond of his bookand a favourite at school, his mother cherishes hopes of his becoming aschool-teacher in days to come. 

But such is the perversity of human nature, that though many a Downsidemother with a family of little steps envied Mrs Gray her compact familyand the small amount of washing attached to it, that ungrateful womanyearned after an occupant for the old wooden cradle, and treasured upthe bits of baby things that had belonged to Tom and Bill, and nursedup any young thing that came to hand and wanted care, bringing up amotherless blind kitten with assiduous care and patience, as if thesupply of that commodity was not always largely in excess of thedemand, and lavishing more care on a sick lamb or a superfluous youngpig than most of the neighbours' babies received. 

So when one evening in May, Gray came in holding a bundle in his armsand poked it into her lap as she sat darning the holes in Tom'sstockings (she was not good at needlework, but she managed, as shesaid, to 'goblify' the holes), he knew pretty well that it was into nounwilling arms that he gave the baby. 

'And a mercy it was as the darning-needle didn't run right into thelittle angel, ' Mrs Gray always said in recounting the story. 

He had been down to the village to fetch some tobacco, for the Grays'cottage was right away from the village, up a lane leading on to thehillside, and there were no other cottages near. Tom was in bed, though it was not eight yet--but he was generally ready for bed when hehad had his tea; and Bill was up on the hill, a favourite resort ofhis, and especially when it was growing dark and the great indigo skyspread over him, with the glory of the stars coming out. 

'He never were like other lads, ' his mother used to say with a mixtureof pride and irritation; 'always mooning about by himself on them oldhills. '

The cottage door stood open as it always did, and Mrs Gray sat there, plainly to be seen from the lane, with Tom's gray stocking and her eyesand the tallow candle as near together as possible. She did not hear asound, though she was listening for Bill's return, and, even thoughTom's snores penetrated the numerous crevices in the floor above, theywere hardly enough to drown other sounds. 

So there was no knowing when the bundle was laid just inside thecottage gate, not quite in the middle of the brick path, but on oneside against the box edging, where a clump of daffodils nodded theirgraceful heads over the dark velvet polyanthus in the border. Graynearly stepped upon the bundle, having large feet, and the way ofwalking which covers a good deal of ground to right and left, a waywhich plough-driving teaches. 

Mrs Gray heard an exclamation. 

And then Gray came in, and, as I have said, did his best to impale thebundle, baby and all, on the top of his wife's darning-needle. 

CHAPTER II. 

Mr Robins--Village Choirs--Edith--An Elopement--A Father's Sorrow--AnUnhappy Pair--The Wanderer's Return--Father!--A Daughter'sEntreater--No Favourable Answer--A Sleepless Pillow

The organist of Downside, Mr Robins, lived in a little house close tothe church. 

Mr Clifford the vicar was accounted very lucky by the neighbouringclergy for having such a man, and not being exposed to all the vagariesof a young schoolmaster, or, perhaps, still worse, schoolmistress, withall the latest musical fancies of the training colleges. Neither hadhe to grapple with the tyranny of the leading bass nor the conceit andtouchiness that seems inseparable from the tenor voice, since Mr Robinskept a firm and sensible hand on the reins, and drove that generallyunmanageable team, a village choir, with the greatest discretion. 

But when Mr Clifford was complimented by his friends on the possessionof such a treasure, he accepted their remarks a little doubtfully, being sometimes inclined to think that he would almost rather have hada less excellent choir and have had some slight voice in the matterhimself. 

Mr Robins imported a certain solemnity into the musical matters ofDownside, which of course was very desirable as far as the churchservices were concerned; but when it came to penny-readings and villageconcerts, Mr Clifford and some of the parishioners were disposed toenvy the pleasant ease of such festivities in other parishes, where, though the music was very inferior, the enjoyment of both performersand audience was far greater. 

Mr Robins, for one thing, set his face steadily against comic songs;and Mr Clifford in his inmost heart had an ungratified ambition to singa certain song, called 'The Three Little Pigs, ' with which Mr Wilson inthe next parish simply brought down the house on several occasions;though Mr Clifford felt he by no means did full justice to it, especially in the part where the old mother 'waddled about, saying"Umph! umph! umph!" while the little ones said "Wee! wee!"' To be sureMr Wilson suffered for months after these performances from outburstsof grunting among his youthful parishioners at sight of him, and evenat the Sunday-school one audacious boy had given vent on one occasionto an 'umph!' very true indeed to nature, but not conducive to goodbehaviour in his class. But Mr Clifford did not know the after effectsof Mr Wilson's vocal success. 

Likewise Mr Robins selected very simple music, and yet exacted anamount of practising unheard of at Bilton or Stokeley, where, after oneor two attempts, they felt competent to face a crowded schoolroom, andyell or growl out such choruses as 'The Heavens are telling' or 'TheHallelujah Chorus, ' with a lofty indifference to tune or time, and withtheir respective schoolmasters banging away at the accompaniment, within a bar or two of the singers, all feeling quite satisfied if theyfinished up altogether on the concluding chord or thereabouts, flushedand triumphant, with perspiration standing on their foreheads, and anexpression of honest pride on their faces, as much as to say, 'There'sfor you. What do you think of that?'

If success is to be measured by applause, there is no doubt theseperformances were most successful, far more so than the accuratelyrendered 'Hardy Norseman' or 'Men of Harlech' at Downside, in whichlights and shades, _pianos_ and _fortes_ were carefully observed, andany attempt on anyone's part, even the tenors, to distinguishthemselves above the others was instantly suppressed. The result, froma musical point of view, was no doubt satisfactory; but the applausewas of a very moderate character, and never accompanied by thosevociferous 'angcores, ' which are so truly gratifying to the soul ofmusical artistes. 

Mr Robins was a middle-aged man, looking older than he really was, ashis hair was quite white. He had some small independent means of hisown, which he supplemented by his small salary as organist, and bygiving a few music lessons in the neighbourhood. He had been in hisearlier years a vicar-choral at one of the cathedrals, and had come toDownside twenty years ago, after the death of his wife, bringing withhim his little girl, in whom he was entirely wrapt up. 

He spoilt her so persistently, and his housekeeper, Mrs Sands, was sogentle and meek-spirited, that the effect on a naturally self-willedchild can easily be imagined; and, as she grew up, she became more andmore uncontrollable. She was a pretty, gypsy-looking girl, inheritingher sweet looks from her mother, and her voice and musical taste fromher father. There was more than one young farmer in the neighbourhoodwho cast admiring glances towards the corner of the church near theorgan, where the organist's pretty daughter sat, and slackened the paceof his horse as he passed the clipped yew-hedge by the church, to catcha glimpse of her in the bright little patch of garden, or to hear herclear sweet voice singing over her work. 

But people said Mr Robins thought no one good enough for her, andthough he himself had come of humble parentage, and in no way regardedhimself, nor expected to be regarded as a gentleman, it was generallyunderstood that no suitor except a gentleman would be acceptable forEdith. 

And so it took every one by surprise, and no one more so than herfather, when the girl took up with Martin Blake, the son of theblacksmith in the next village, who might be seen most days with asmutty face and leathern apron hammering away at the glowing red metalon the anvil. It would have been well for him if he had only been seenthus, with the marks of honest toil about him; but Martin Blake was toooften to be seen at the 'Crown, ' and often in a state that anyone wholoved him would have grieved to see; and he was always to be found atany race meetings and steeplechases and fairs in the neighbourhood, and, report said, was by no means choice in his company. 

To be sure he was good-looking and pleasant-mannered, and had a sort ofrollicking, light-hearted way with him, which was very attractive; butstill it seemed little short of infatuation on the part of Edith Robinsto take up with a man whose character was so well known, and who was inevery way her inferior in position and education. 

No doubt Mr Robins was very injudicious in his treatment of her when hefound out what was going on, and as this was the first time in her lifethat Edith's wishes had been crossed, it was not likely that she wouldyield without a struggle. The mere fact of opposition seemed to deepenwhat was at first merely an ordinary liking into an absorbing passion. It was perfectly useless to reason with her; she disbelieved all thestories to his discredit, which were abundant, and treated those whorepeated them as prejudiced and ill-natured. 

It was in vain that Mr Robins by turns entreated and commanded her togive him up, her father's distress or anger alike seemed indifferent toher; and when he forbade Martin to come near the place, and kept her asmuch as possible under his eye to prevent meetings between them, itonly roused in her a more obstinate determination to have her own wayin spite of him. She was missing one morning from the little bedroomwhich Mrs Sands loved to keep as dainty and pretty as a lady's, andfrom the garden where the roses and geraniums did such credit to hercare, and from her place in the little church where her prayer-bookstill lay on the desk as she had left it the day before. 

She had gone off with Martin Blake to London, without a word of sorrowor farewell to the father who had been so foolishly fond of her, or tothe home where her happy petted childhood had passed. It nearly brokeher father's heart; it made an old man of him and turned his hairwhite, and it seemed to freeze or petrify all his kindliness and humansympathy. 

He was a proud, reserved man, and could not bear the pity that everyone felt for him, or endure the well-meant but injudicious condolences, mixed with 'I told you so, ' and 'I 've thought for a long time, ' whichthe neighbours were so liberal with. Even Mr Clifford's attempts atconsolation he could hardly bring himself to listen to courteously, andJane Sands' tearful eyes and quivering voice irritated him beyond allendurance. If there had been anyone to whom he could have talkedunrestrainedly and let out all the pent-up disappointment and woundedlove and tortured pride that surged and boiled within him, he mighthave got through it better, or rather it might have raised him, asrightly borne troubles do, above his poor, little, pitiful self, andnearer to God; but this was just what he could not do. 

He came nearest it sometimes in those long evenings of organ playing, of the length of which poor little Jack Davis, the blower, so bitterlycomplained, when the long sad notes wailed and sobbed through thelittle church like the voice of a weary, sick soul making itscomplaint. But even so he could not tell it all to God, though he hadbeen given that power of expression in music, which must make it easierto those so gifted to cry unto the Lord. 

But the music wailed itself into silence, and Jack in his corner by thebellows waited terror-struck at the 'unked' sounds and the darkeningchurch, till he ventured at last to ask: 'Be I to blow, mister? I 'mkinder skeered like. '

So the organist's trouble turned him bitter and hard, and changed hislove for his daughter into cold resentment; he would not have her namementioned in his presence, and he refused to open a letter she sent hima few weeks after her marriage, and bid Jane Sands send it back if sheknew the address of the person who sent it. 

On her side, Edith was quite as obstinate and resentful. She had noidea of humbling herself and asking pardon. She thought she had quitea right to do as she liked, and she believed her father would be toounhappy without her to bear the separation long. She very soon foundout the mistake she had made--indeed, even in the midst of herinfatuation about Martin Blake, I think there lurked a certain distrustof him, and they had not been married many weeks--I might almost saydays--before this distrust was more than realised. 

His feelings towards her, too, had been mere flattered vanity at beingpreferred by such a superior sort of girl than any deeper feeling, andvanity is not a sufficiently lasting foundation for married happiness, especially when the cold winds of poverty blow on the edifice, and whenthe superior sort of girl has not been brought up to anything useful, and cannot cook the dinner, or iron a shirt, or keep the house tidy. 

When his father, the old blacksmith at Bilton, died six months afterthey were married, Martin wished to come back and take up the workthere, more especially as work was hard to get in London and livingdear; but Edith would not hear of it, and opposed it so violently thatshe got her way, though Martin afterwards maintained that this decisionwas the ruin of him, occasionally dating his ruin six months earlier, from his wedding. Perhaps he was right, and he might have settled downsteadily in the old home and among the old neighbours in spite of hisfine-lady wife; but when he said so, Edith was quick to remember andcast up at him the stories which she had disbelieved and ignoredbefore, to prove in their constant wranglings that place andneighbourhood had nothing to do with his idleness and unsteadiness. Noone ever heard much of these five years in London, for Edith wrote nomore after that letter was returned. 

Those five years made little difference at Downside, except in MrRobins' white hair and set lined face; the little house behind theyew-hedge looked just the same, and Jane Sands' kind, placid face wasstill as kind and placid. Some of the girls had left school and goneto service; some of the lads had developed into hobbledehoys and cameto church with walking-sticks and well-oiled hair; one or two of theold folks had died; one or two more white-headed babies crawled aboutthe cottage floors; but otherwise Downside was just the same as it hadbeen five years before, when, one June morning, a self-willed girl hadsoftly opened the door under the honeysuckle porch and stepped out intothe dewy garden, where the birds were calling such a glad good-morningas she passed to join her lover in the lane. 

But the flame of life burns quicker and fiercer in London than atDownside, for that same girl, coming back after only five years inLondon, was so changed and aged and altered that--though, to be sure, she came in the dusk and was muffled up in a big shawl--no onerecognised her, or thought for a moment of pretty, coquettish, well-dressed Edith Robins, when the weary, shabby-looking woman passedthem by. She had lingered a minute or two by the churchyard gate, though tramps, for such her worn-out boots and muddy skirts proclaimedher, do not, as a rule, care for such music as sounded out from thechurch door, where Mr Robins was consoling himself for the irritationof choir-practice by ten minutes' playing. It was soon over, and JackDavis, still blower, and not much taller than he was five years before, charged out in the rebound from the tension of long blowing, and nearlyknocked over the woman standing by the churchyard gate in the shadow ofthe yew-tree, and made the baby she held in her arms give a feeble cry. 

'Now then, out of the way!' he shouted in that unnecessarily loud voiceboys assume after church, perhaps to try if their lungs are stillcapable of producing such a noise after enforced silence. 

The woman made no answer, but after the boy had run off, went in andwaited in the porch till the sound of turning keys announced that theorganist was closing the organ and church for the night. But as hisfootsteps drew near on the stone pavement she started and trembled asif she had been afraid, and when he came out into the porch she shrankaway into the shadow as if she wished to be unobserved. He mighteasily have passed her, for it was nearly dark from the yew-tree andthe row of elms that shut out, the western sky, where the sunset wasjust dying away. His mind, too, was occupied with other things, and hewas humming over the verse of a hymn the boys had been singing--'Farfrom my heavenly home. ' There was no drilling into them the properrendering of the last pathetic words--

 O guide me through the desert here, And bring me home at last. 

He quite started when a hand was laid upon his arm, and a voice, changed indeed, and weak, but still the voice that in old days--not sovery old either--was the one voice for him in all the world, said:'Father!'

I think just for one minute his impulse was to take her in his arms andforget the ingratitude and desertion and deceit, like the father in theparable whose heart went out to the poor prodigal while he was yet along way off; but the next moment the cold, bitter, resentful feelingsquenched the gentler impulse, and he drew away his arm from herdetaining hold, and passed on along the flagged path as if he wereunconscious of her presence, and this on the very threshold of Hishouse, who so pitifully forgives the debts of His servants, forasmuchas they have not to pay. 

But he had not reached the churchyard gate before she was at his sideagain. 

'Stop, ' she said; 'you must hear me. It's not for my own sake, it'sthe child. It's a little girl; the others were boys, and I didn't mindso much; if they 'd grown up, they might have got on somehow--butthere! they 're safe anyhow--both of them in one week, ' wailed themother's voice, protesting against her own words that she did not mindabout them. 'But this is a girl, and not a bit like him. She 's likeme, and you used to say I was like mother. She's like mother, I 'msure she is. There, just look at her. It's so dark, but you can seeeven by this light that she's not like the Blakes. ' She was fumblingto draw back the shawl from the baby's head with her disengaged hand, while with the other she still held a grip on his arm that was almostpainful in its pressure; but he stood doggedly with his head turnedaway, and gave no sign of hearing what she said. 

'He left me six months ago, ' she went on, 'and I 've struggled alongsomehow. I don't want ever to see him again. They say he's gone toAmerica, but I don't care. I don't mind starving myself, but it's thelittle girl--Oh! I 've not come to ask you to take me in, though itwouldn't be for long, ' and a wretched, hollow cough that hadinterrupted her words once or twice before, broke in now as if toconfirm what she said; 'if you'd just take the child. She's a dearlittle thing, and not old enough at two months to have learnt any harm, and Jane Sands would be good to her, I know she would, for the sake ofold times. And I'll go away and never come near to trouble youagain--I 'll promise it. Oh! just look at her! If it wasn't so darkyou'd see she was like mother. Why, you can feel the likeness if youjust put your hand on her little face; often in the night I 've feltit, and I never did with the boys. She's very good, and she's toolittle to fret after me, bless her!--and she 'll never know anythingabout me, and needn't even know she has a father, and he 's not everlikely to trouble himself about her. '

Her voice grew more and more pleading and entreating as she went on, for there was not the slightest response or movement in the stillfigure before her, less movement even than in the old yew-tree behind, whose smaller branches, black against the sky where the orange of thesunset was darkening into dull crimson, stirred a little in the eveningair. 

'Oh! you can't refuse to take her! See, I'll carry her as far as thedoor so that Jane can take her, and then I 'll go clear away and nevercome near her again. You 'll have her christened, won't you? I 'vebeen thinking all the weary way what she should be called, and Ithought, unless you had a fancy for any other name' (a little stifledsigh at the thought of how dear one name used to be to him), 'I shouldlike her to be Zoe. Just when she was born, and I was thinking, thinking of you and home and everything, that song of yours keptringing in my head, "Maid of Athens, " and the last line of every versebeginning with Zoe. I can't remember the other words, but I know yousaid they meant "My life, I love you;" and Zoe was life, and I thoughtwhen I'm gone my little girl would live my life over again, my happyold life with you, and make up to you for all the trouble her mother'sbeen to you. '

She stopped for want of breath and for the cough that shook her fromhead to foot, and at last he turned; but even in that dim light shecould see his face plainly enough to know that there was no favourableanswer coming from those hard set lips and from those cold steady eyes, and her hand dropped from his arm even before he spoke. 

'You should have thought of this five years ago, ' he said. 'I do notsee that I am called upon to support Martin Blake's family. I musttrouble you to let me pass. '

She fell back against the trunk of the yew-tree as if he had struckher, and the movement caused the baby to wake and cry, and the sound ofits little wailing voice followed him as he walked down the path andout into the road, and he could hear it still when he reached his owngarden gate, where through the open door the light shone out from thelamp that Jane Sands was just carrying into his room, where his supperwas spread and his armchair and slippers awaited him. 

In after days, remembering that evening, he fancied he had heard'Father' once more mingling with the baby's cry; but he went in andshut the door and drew the bolt and went into the cheerful, pleasantroom, leaving outside the night and the child's cry and the blackshadow of the church and the yew-tree. 

It was only the beginning of the annoyance, he told himself; he mustexpect a continued course of persecution, and he listened, while hemade a pretence of eating his supper, for the steps outside and theknock at the door, which would surely renew the unwarrantable attemptto saddle him with the charge of the child. He listened too, as he satafter supper, holding up the newspaper in front of his unobservanteyes; and he listened most of the night as he tossed on his sleeplesspillow--listened to the wind that had risen and moaned and sobbed roundthe house like a living thing in pain--listened to the pitiless rainthat followed, pelting down on the ivy outside and on the tiles abovehis head, as if bent on finding its way in to the warm comfortable bedwhere he lay. 

CHAPTER III. 

Something on the Doorstep--Bill Gray--Is That a Cat?--She's LikeMother--A Baby's Shoe--Jane Restless

But the annoyance for which Mr Robins had been preparing himself wasnot repeated; the persecution, if such had been intended, was notcontinued. As the days passed by he began to leave off listening andlying awake; he came out from his house or from the church withoutfurtive glances of expectation to the right and left; he lost thatconstant feeling of apprehension and the necessity to nerve himself forresistance. He had never been one to gossip or concern himself withother people's matters, and Jane Sands had never brought the news ofthe place to amuse her master, as many in her place would have done; sonow he had no way of knowing if his daughter's return had been known inthe place, or what comments the neighbours passed on it. 

He fancied that Jane looked a little more anxious than usual; but thenher sister was lying ill at Stokeley, and she was often there with her, so that accounted for her anxiety. It accounted, too, for her beingaway one evening a fortnight later, when Mr Robins coming in in thedusk found something laid on his doorstep. His thoughts had beenotherwise occupied, but the moment his eyes fell on theshepherd's-plaid shawl wrapping the bundle at his feet, he knew what itwas, and recognised a renewed attempt to coerce him into doing what hehad vowed he would not. He saw it all in a minute, and understood thatnow Jane Sands was in the plot against him, and she had devised thisway of putting the child in his path because she was afraid to come tohim openly and say what she wanted. Perhaps even now she was watching, expecting to see him fall into the trap they had set for him; but theyshould find they were very much mistaken. 

His first resolution was to fetch the police constable and get him totake the child right off to the workhouse, but on second thoughts healtered his purpose. Such a step would set all the tongues in theplace wagging, and, little as he cared for public opinion, it would notbe pleasant for every one to be telling how he had sent his grandchildto the workhouse. Grandchild? pshaw! it was Martin Blake's brat. 

The child was sleeping soundly, everything was quiet, the dusk wasgathering thick and fast. Why should he not put the child outside someother cottage, and throw the responsibility of disposing of it onsomeone else, and be clear of it himself altogether? The idea shapeditself with lightning rapidity in his brain, and he passed quickly inreview the different cottages in the place and their inmates, and inspite of his indifference to Martin Blake's brat, he selected one wherehe knew a kindly reception, at any rate for the night, would be given. He knew more about the Grays than of most of the village people. Billwas a favourite of his, and had been with him that afternoon afterschool to fetch a book Mr Robins had promised to lend him. He was abright, intelligent boy, and had a sweet voice, and the organist foundhim a more apt pupil than any of the others, and had taken some painswith him, and when he was ill the winter before had been to see him, and so had come to know his mother, and her liking for anything youngand weak and tender. 

Their cottage was at some distance, to be sure, and Mr Robins had nothad much to do with babies of late years, and was a little distrustfulof his ability to carry one so far without rousing it and soproclaiming its presence, but there was a path across the fields butlittle frequented, by which he could convey the child without much riskof being met and observed. 

And now the great thing to aim at was to carry out his plan as quicklyas possible, before any one was aware of the child being at his house;and he gathered up the little warm bundle as gingerly as he knew how, and was on his way to the gate, when the sound of approaching stepsalong the road made him draw back and, unlocking the door, carry thechild in. The steps stopped at the gate and turned in, and one of thechoirmen came to the door. 

There were little movements and soft grumblings inside the shawl in theorganist's arms, and he turned quite cold with apprehension. 

'Anyone at home?' sounded Millet's jovial voice at the open door. ''Evening, Mr Robins--are you there? All in the dark, eh? I wanted acouple of words with you about that song. '

'I 'll come directly, ' sounded the organist's voice, with a curiousjogging effect in it, such as Millet was used to sometimes in hisconversations with his wife at the children's bed-time. And thenMillet heard him go up-stairs, and it was some minutes before he camedown again, and then in such a queer absent condition that if it hadbeen any other man in the parish than Mr Robins, whose sobriety wasunimpeachable, Millet would have said that he had had a drop too much. 

He did not ask him in or strike a light, but stood at the dooranswering quite at haphazard, and showing such indifference on thevital question of a certain song suiting Millet's voice, that thatusually good-natured man was almost offended. 

'Well, I 'll wish you good evening, ' he said at last (it seemed toRobins that he had been hours at the door); 'perhaps you 'll just thinkit over and let me know. Hullo!--is that a cat you have up there? Ithought I heard something squeal out just then. '

Mr Robins was not generally given to shaking hands--indeed, some of thechoir thought he was too much stuck up to do so; but just then heseized Millet's hand and shook it quite boisterously, at the same timeadvancing with the apparent intention of accompanying him in a friendlymanner to the gate, a movement which compelled Millet to back in thesame direction, and cut short his farewell remarks, which frequentlylasted for ten minutes or more. And all the way to the gate Robins wastalking much quicker and louder than was his usual custom, and he endedby almost pushing Millet out at the gate, all the time expressing greatpleasure at having seen him, and pressing him to come in again anyevening he could spare the time, and have a pipe and a bit of supperwith him--such unheard-of hospitality that Millet went home quitepersuaded that the old man was, as he expressed it to his wife, 'goingoff his chump;' so that it was quite a relief to meet him two dayslater at the choir practice as formal and distant in his manners asever. 

Meanwhile Mr Robins had hastened back to his bedroom where the baby layasleep on his bed; for it had been really Jane Sands' cat whose voiceMillet heard, and not, as Mr Robins believed, the waking child's. 

It was quite dark up there, and he could only feel the warm, littleheap on his bed, but he struck a match to look at it. The shawl hadfallen away, showing its little dark head and round sleeping face, withone little fist doubled up against its cheek and half-open mouth, andthe other arm thrown back, the tiny hand lying with the little moist, creased palm turned up. 

'She's like mother, I 'm sure she is. ' He remembered the words andscanned the small sleeping face. Well, perhaps there was a likeness, the eyelashes and the gypsy tint of the complexion; but just then thematch went out and the organist remembered there was no time to bewasted in trying to see likenesses in Martin Blake's brat. But just ashe was lifting the baby cautiously from his bed, a sudden thoughtstruck him. Zoe was to be her name; well, it should be so, though hehad no concern in her name or anything else; so he groped about forpencil and paper, and wrote the name in big printing letters todisguise his hand and make it as distinct as possible, though even so, as we have seen already, the name caused considerable perplexity to thesponsors. And then he pinned the paper on to the shawl, and taking thechild in his arms set out across the field path to the Grays' cottage. 

There was a cold air, though it was a May night, but the child lay warmagainst him, and he remembered how its mother had said she could feelthe likeness even in the dark, and he could not resist laying his coldfinger on the warm little cheek under the shawl; and then, angry withhimself for the throb that the touch sent to his heart, hastened hissteps, and had soon reached the Grays' cottage and deposited his burdenjust inside the gate, where a few minutes after Gray found it. Hecould see Mrs Gray plainly as she sat at her work: a pleasant, motherlyface; but he did not linger to look at it, but turned away and retracedhis steps along the field path home. He found himself shivering as hewent; the air seemed to have grown more chilly and penetrating withoutthat warm burden against his heart, and the unaccustomed weight hadmade his arms tremble. 

Somehow the house looked dull and uncomfortable, though Jane Sands hadcome in and lighted the lamp, and was laying his supper. Up-stairsthere was a hollow on his bed where something had lain, and by the sideof the bed he found a baby's woollen shoe, which might have betrayedhim to Jane if she had gone up-stairs. But though he put it out ofsight directly, he felt sure that the whole matter was no secret fromJane, and that she had been an accomplice in the trick that had beenplayed on him, and he smiled to himself at the thought of how he hadoutwitted her, and of how puzzled she must be to know what had becomeof the baby. 

He did his best to appear as tranquil and composed as usual, as ifnothing had happened to disturb the ordinary current of his life, andhe forced himself to make a few remarks on indifferent subjects whenshe came into the room. 

She had evidently been crying, and was altogether in a nervous andupset condition. She forgot half the things he wanted at supper, andher hand trembled so that she nearly overturned the lamp. More thanonce she stopped and looked at him as if she were nerving herself tospeak, and he knew quite well the question that was trembling on herlips. 'Where is the child? Master, where is the child?' But he wouldnot help her in any way, and he quite ignored the agitation that wasonly too evident; and even when he went into the kitchen to fetch hispipe, and found her with her face buried in her arms on the kitchentable, shaking with irrepressible sobs, he retreated softly into thepassage and called to her to bring the pipe, and when, after a longdelay, she brought it in, he was apparently absorbed in his paper, andtook no notice of her tear-stained face and quivering lips. 

He heard her stirring far into the night, and once she went into thelittle room next his that used to be his daughter's, and which no onehad used since she left, and in the silence of the night again he couldhear heartbreaking sobs half-stifled. 

'Poor soul! poor soul!' he said to himself. 'She's a good creature isJane, and no doubt she's bitterly disappointed. I 'll make it up toher somehow. She's a faithful, good soul!'

He was restless and uncomfortable himself, and he told himself he hadtaken cold and was a bit feverish. It was feverish fancy, no doubt, that made him think the hollow where the child's light weight hadrested was still perceptible, but this fancy outlasted the fever ofthat night and the cold that caused it, for there was hardly a nightafterwards when Mr Robins did not detect its presence, even with allJane Sands' thorough shaking of the feather-bed and careful spreadingof sheets and blankets. If he dropped asleep for a minute that nightthe child was in his arms again, heavy as lead, weighing him down, down, down, into some unfathomable gulf, or he was feeling for it inthe dark, and its face was cold as death; and more than once he wokewith a start, feeling certain that a child's cry had sounded close tohis bed. 

CHAPTER IV. 

Village Evidence--'Gray' on the Brain--Too Well He Knew--Mr Robins andthe Baby--He Had Not Done Badly

There is certainly a penalty paid by people who keep entirely clear ofgossip, though it is not by any means in proportion to the advantagesthey gain. The penalty is that when they particularly want to hear anypiece of news, they are not likely to hear it naturally like otherpeople, but must go out of their way to make inquiries and evince acuriosity which at once makes them remarkable. 

Now every one in the village except Mr Robins heard of the baby foundin the Grays' garden, and discussed how it came there, but it was onlyby overhearing a casual word here and there that the organist gatheredeven so much as that the Grays had resolved to keep the child, and werenot going to send it to the workhouse. Even Bill Gray knew theorganist's ways too well to trouble him with the story, though he wastoo full of it himself to give his usual attention at the next choirpractice, and, at every available pause between chant and hymn, hishead and that of the boy next him were close together in deep discourse. 

It had occurred to Mr Robins' mind, in the waking moments of thatrestless night, that there might have been--nay, most probablywas--some mark on the child's clothes which would lead to itsidentification, and, for the next few days, every glance in hisdirection, or, for the matter of that, in any other direction, wasinterpreted by him as having some covert allusion to this foundlinggrandchild of his; but the conversation of some men outside hisyew-hedge, which he accidentally overheard one day, set his anxiety atrest. 

From this he gathered that it was generally supposed to be a childbelonging to a gypsy caravan that had passed through the village thatday. 

'And I says, ' said one of the men with that slow, emphatic delivery inwhich the most ordinary sentiments are given forth as if they werewisdom unheard and undreamt of before; 'and I don't mind who hears me, as Gray did oughter set the perlice on to 'un to find the heartlessjade as did 'un. '

'Ay, sure! so he did oughter; but he ain't on gumption, Gray ain't;never had neither, as have known him man and boy these fifty year. '

'My missus says, ' went on the first speaker, 'as she seed a gypsy galwith just such a brat as this on her arm. She come round to parson'sback door--my Liza's kitchen gal there and telled her mother. She wereone of them dressed-up baggages with long earrings and a yellerhandkercher round her head, a-telling fortunes; coming round the poor, silly gals with her long tongue and sly ways. She went in here, too. 'Mr Robins guessed, though he could not see the jerk of the thumb in hisdirection. 'Mrs Sands told me so herself--the organist's listening wasquickened to yet sharper attention--'she says she had quite a job toget rid of her, and thought she were after the spoons belike. But shesays as she'd know the gal again anywheres, and my missus says she'dpretty near take her davy to the child, though as I says, one brat'spretty much like another--haw, haw! though the women don't think it. '

And the two men parted, laughing over this excellent joke. 

It was most curious how that little out-of-the-way house of the Graysand its unremarkable inmates had suddenly become conspicuous; the verycottage was visible from all directions--from the churchyard gate, fromthe organist's garden, from various points along the Stokeley road; butperhaps this may have been because Mr Robins had never cared toidentify one thatched roof from another hitherto. As for the Grays, they seemed to be everywhere; that man hoeing in the turnip-field wasGray, that boy at the head of the team in the big yellow wagon was Tom, and Bill seemed to be all over the place, whistling along the road orrunning round the corner, or waiting to change his book at theorganist's gate. If Mr Clifford spoke to Mr Robins it was aboutsomething to do with the Grays, and even Mr Wilson of Stokeley stoppedhim in the road to ask if some people called Gray lived at Downside. It was most extraordinary how these people, so insignificant a weekago, were now brought into prominence. 

Even before Mr Robins had overheard that conversation he had had afidgety sort of wish to go up to the Grays' cottage, and now he made apretext of asking for a book he had lent Bill, but went before theschool came out, so that only Mrs Gray was at home as he opened thegate and went up the path. 

It was a beautiful, sunny afternoon, and Mrs Gray was sitting outsidethe door, making, plain as she was, a pretty picture with the shadowsof the young vine-leaves over the door dappling her print gown andapron and the baby's little dark head and pink pinafore, a garment thathad once been Bill's, who had been of a more robust build than thisbaby, and moreover, had worn the pinafore at a more advanced age, sothat the fit left a good deal to be desired, and the colour hadsuffered in constant visits to the wash-tub, and was not so bright asit had been originally. 

But altogether, the faded pinafore and the vine-leaf shadows, and thelove in the woman's face, made a harmonious whole, and the song she wassinging, without a note of sweetness or tune in it, did not jar on theorganist's ear, as you might have supposed, knowing his critical andrefined taste. 

'Good afternoon, Mrs Gray, ' he said; 'I came for the book I lent yourson the other day. Why, is this your baby?' he added withunnecessarily elaborate dissimulation. 'I did not know you had any soyoung. '

'Mine? Lor' bless you, no. Ain't you heard? Why, I thought it wasall over the place. Gray, he found it in the garden just there whereyou be standing, a week ago come to-morrow. Ain't she a pretty dear, bless her! and takes such notice too, as is wonderful. Why, she'slooking at you now as if she 'd aknown you all her life. Just look ather! if she ain't smiling at you, a little puss!'

'Where did she come from?'

'Well, sure, who 's to know? There was some gypsy folks through theplace, and there 've been a lot of tramps about along of Milton Fair, and there was one of 'em, they say, a week or two ago with just such ababy as this 'un. My master he 've made a few inquirements; but there!for my part I don't care if we don't hear no more of her folks, andGray's much of the same mind, having took a terrible fancy to thechild. And it's plain as she ain't got no mother worth the name, aswould leave her like that, and neglected too shameful. As there ain'tno excuse, to my way of thinking, for a baby being dirty, let folks beas poor as they may. '

Somewhere deep down in Mr Robins's mind, unacknowledged to himself, there was a twinge of resentment at this reflection on the mother'streatment of the baby. 

'She 's as sweet as a blossom now, ' went on Mrs Gray, tossing the babyup, who laughed and crowed and stretched its arms. Yes, he could seethe likeness, he was sure of it; and it brought back to his mind withsudden vividness a young mother's look of pride and love as she held upher little girl for the father's admiration. Mother and child had thenbeen wonderfully alike, and in this baby he could trace a likeness toboth. 

Mrs Gray went maundering on, as her manner was, interspersing hernarrative with baby nonsense and endearments, and Mr Robins forgot hiserrand, which was, after all, only a pretext, and stood half-listening, and more than half back in the old days of memory, and once he so farforgot himself as to snap his fingers at the child, and touch one ofits warm, little hands, which immediately closed round his finger witha baby's soft, tenacious grasp, from which it required a certain gentleeffort to escape. 

'A pleasant, chatty sort of man the organist, ' Mrs Gray said, havingtalked nearly all the time herself, with only a word or two from himnow and then as reply; 'and not a bit of pride about him, let folks saywhat they like. Why, he stopped ever so long and had a deal to say;and there, Bill, you just run down with the book, as he went off afterall without it. '

Mr Robins went home slowly across the fields in a curiously softenedframe of mind. Perhaps it was the soft west wind, fragrant with sweetspring scents of cowslips and cherry blossom, or the full glad sunshineon all the varied green of tree and hedge, a thousand tints of that'shower of greennesses' poured down so lavishly by the Giver of allgood things; perhaps it was the larks springing up from the clover insuch an ecstasy of song; or perhaps it was the clasp of a baby's handon his finger. He noticed the spring beauty round him as he had notnoticed such things for many a day, stooping to pick a big, tasselled, gold-freckled cowslip, and stopping to let a newly-fledged, awkward, young bird hop clumsily out of the way, with a sort of tenderness andconsideration for young things unusual to him. 

His mind was more at rest than it had been for the last three weeks. The baby's crowing laughter seemed to drive out of his memory thewailing cry and the hollow cough and the sad, beseeching voice saying'Father, ' and then the pitiless beating rain, which had been hauntinghim for the last three weeks. The sight of the baby, loved and caredfor, had taken away a misgiving, which he had hardly been conscious ofhimself. After all, he had not done badly by the child. Mrs Gray wasa kind motherly sort of body, and used to babies, which Jane Sands wasnot, and she would do well by the child, and he himself could see, without any one being the wiser, that the child did not want foranything, though he would not be held responsible in any way for it. 

CHAPTER V. 

Jane Hard at Work--Clothes for the Baby--Jane Returns--Jane Singingover her Work--Jane's Selfish Absorption--For a Poor Person'sChild--The Organist in Church

There was one thing that puzzled Mr Robins extremely, and this was JaneSands' behaviour. He was convinced that she had been a party to thetrick that had been played off on him, and she was evidently full ofsome secret trouble and anxiety, for which he could only account byattributing it to her disappointment about the baby, and perhapsdistrust of the care that would be taken of it by others. 

Mr Robins often discovered her in tears, and she was constantly goingout for hours at a time, having always hitherto been almost too much ofa stay-at-home. He suspected that these lengthened absences meantvisits to the Grays' cottage, and that baby-worship that women find sodelightful; but he found out accidentally that she had never been nearthe cottage since the baby's arrival, and when he made an excuse ofsending a book by her to Bill to get her to go there, she met the boyat the bottom of the lane, and did not go on to the cottage. 

As to what he had overheard the men saying about the gypsy girl, hefelt sure that Jane had only said this to put people on the wrongscent, though, certainly, deception of any sort was very unlike her. Once he found her sitting up late at night at work on some small frocksand pinafores, and he thought that at last the subject was coming tothe surface, and especially as she coloured up and tried to hide thework when he came in. 

'Busy?' he said. 'You seem very hard at work. Who are you workingfor?'

'A baby, ' she stammered, 'a baby----that my sister's taking care of. '

She was so red and confused that he felt sure she was saying what wasnot true, but he forgave her for the sake of the baby for whom hefirmly believed the work was being done, and who, to be sure, when hesaw it in Mrs Gray's arms, looked badly in want of clothes more fittedto its size than Bill's old pinafores. 

He stood for a minute fingering the pink, spotted print of infantilesimplicity of pattern, and listening to the quick click, click, of herneedle as it flew in and out; but it was not till he had turned awayand was half out of the kitchen, that she began a request that had beenon the tip of her tongue all the time, but which she had not venturedto bring out while he stood at the table. 

'I was going to ask--if you 'd no objection--seeing that they're nogood to any one'----

Now it was coming out, and he turned with an encouraging smile:

'Well, what is it?'

'There are some old baby-clothes put away in a drawer up-stairs. They're rough dried, and I've kept an eye on them, and took them out nowand then to see as the moth didn't get in them'----

'Yes?'

'Well, sir--this baby that I'm working for is terrible short ofclothes, and I thought I might take a few of them for her'----

She did not look at him once as she spoke, or she might have beenencouraged by the look on his face, which softened into a verybenignant, kindly expression. 

'To be sure! to be sure!' he said. 'I 've no objection to your takingsome of them for the baby--at your sister's. ' He spoke the last wordswith some meaning, and she looked quickly up at him and dropped herwork as if tumultuous words were pressing to be spoken, but stoppedthem with an effort and went on with her work, only with heightenedcolour and trembling fingers. 

She was not slow to avail herself of his permission, for that verynight, before she went to bed, he heard her in the next room turningout the drawer where the old baby-clothes had been stored away eversince little Edith had discarded them for clothes of a larger size. And next morning she was up betimes, starching and ironing andgoffering dainty little frills with such a look of love andsatisfaction on her face, that he had not the heart to hint that shehad availed herself somewhat liberally of his permission, and that lessdainty care and crispness might do equally well for the baby, bundledup in Mrs Gray's kind but crumpling arms, to take the place of Bill'sfaded pinafore. 

That afternoon he purposely took his way home over the hillside anddown the lane by the Grays' cottage, with a conviction that he shouldsee the baby tricked out in some of those frilled and tucked littlegarments over which Jane Sands had lavished so much time and attentionthat morning. But to his surprise he saw her in much the same costumeas before, only the pinafore this time was washed-out lavender insteadof pink, and, as she was in Bill's arms, and he, as the youngest of thefamily, being inexperienced in nursing, a more crumpled effect wasproduced than his mother had done. He could only conclude that Janehad not found time yet to take the things, or that Mrs Gray wasreserving them for a more showy occasion. 

But he found Jane just returning as he came up to his house, and shelooked far more hot and dusty than the short walk up the lane to theGrays accounted for, but with a beaming look on her kind face that hadnot been there for many a day. 

'Well, ' he said, 'Jane, have you been to Stokeley?'

'Yes, ' she said, 'and I took the things you were good enough to say thebaby might have. They _were_ pleased. '

She, too, spoke with a curious meaning in her voice and manner whichsomehow faded when she saw the want of response in his face. Indeedthere was a very distinct feeling of disappointment and irritation inhis feelings. For after all those clothes had actually gone to someother baby. Well! well! it is a selfish world after all, and each ofus has his own interests which take him up and engross him. No doubtthis little common child at Stokeley was all in all to Jane Sands, andshe was glad enough of a chance to pick all the best out of those babyclothes up-stairs that he remembered his young wife preparing solovingly for her baby and his. It gave him quite a pang to think ofsome little Sands or Jenkins adorned with these tucks he had seen runso carefully and frills sewn so daintily. He had evidently given Janecredit for a great deal more unselfishness and devotion to him and histhan she really felt, for she had all the time been busy working andproviding for her own people, when he had thought she was full ofconsideration for Edith's child. Pshaw! he had to pull himselftogether and take himself to task. For even in these few days he hadgrown to think of that little brown-faced, dark-eyed baby as hisgrandchild, instead of Martin Blake's brat. Insensibly and naturally, too, the child had brought back the memory of its mother, first asbaby, then as sweet and winsome little child; then as bright, wilful, coaxing girl, and, lastly, unless he kept his thoughts well in check, there followed on these brighter memories the shadow of a white wornwoman under the yew-tree in the churchyard, and of a voice that said'Father. '

That uninteresting child at Stokeley apparently required a great supplyof clothes, for Jane Sands was hard at work again that evening, andwhen he came in from the choir practice, he heard her singing over herwork as she used to do in old days, and when he went in for his pipe, she looked up with a smile that seemed to expect a sympatheticresponse, and made no effort to conceal the work as she had done theday before. 

He stood morosely by the fireplace for a minute, shaking the ashes outof his pipe. 

'You're very much taken up with that baby, ' he said crossly; and shelooked up quickly, thinking that perhaps he had a hole in his stocking, or a button off his shirt to complain of, as a consequence of her beingengrossed in other work. But he went on without looking at her, andapparently deeply absorbed in getting an obstinate bit of ash out ofthe pipe bowl. 

'There's a child at Mrs Gray's they say is very short of clothes. Thatbaby, you know'----

'That baby that was found in the garden, ' Jane said in such a curiouslyuninterested tone of voice that he could not resist glancing round ather; but she was just then engaged in that mysterious process of'stroking the gathers, ' which the intelligent feminine reader willunderstand requires a certain attention. If this indifference wereassumed, Jane Sands was a much better actor and a more deceptivecharacter than he had believed possible; if she were too entirelyabsorbed in her own people to give even a thought to her youngmistress's baby, she was not the Jane Sands he thought he had known forthe last twenty years. The only alternative was that she knew nothingabout the baby having been left on his door-step, nor of the meetingwith his daughter in the churchyard which had preceded it. 

What followed convinced him that this was the case, though it also alittle favoured the other hypothesis of her selfish absorption in herown people. 

'Perhaps, ' he said, 'you could look out some of those baby thingsup-stairs if there are any left. '

'What? I beg your pardon, sir. What did you say?'

'Those baby clothes up-stairs that you gave to your sister's baby. '

'Those!' she said, with a strange light of indignation in her eyes, more even than you would have expected in the most grasping and greedyperson on a proposal that something should be snatched from her hungrymaw and given to another. 'Those! Little Miss Edith's things! thather own mother made and that I 've kept so careful all these years incase Miss Edith's own should need them!'

You see she forgot in the excitement of the moment that these were thevery things she had been giving away so freely to that common littlechild at Stokeley; but women are so inconsistent. 

'Well?' he said, as her breath failed her in this unusual torrent ofremonstrance. 'Why not?'

'For a little gypsy child! a foundling that nobody knows anythingabout! Don't do it, master, don't! I couldn't abear to see it. Here, let me get a bit of print and flannel and run together a few things forthe child. I 'd rather do it a hundred times than that those thingsshould be given away--and just now too!'

It was very plain to Mr Robins that she did not know; but all the samehe was half inclined to point out that it was not a much moreoutrageous thing to bestow these cherished garments on a foundling thanon her sister's baby; but she was evidently so unconscious of herinconsistency in the matter that he did not know how to suggest it toher. 

'I 'm going into Stokeley to-morrow, ' she went on, 'and if you liked Icould get some print and make it a few frocks. I saw some very neat atfourpence three-farthings that would wash beautiful, and a good stoutflannel at elevenpence. Oh! not like that, ' she said as he laid afinger on some soft Saxony flannel with a pink edge which lay on thetable. 'Something more serviceable for a poor person's child. '

Well, perhaps it was better that Jane should not know who the baby wasof whom she spoke so contemptuously. A baby was none the better orhealthier for being dressed up in frills and lace; and Mrs Gray was athoroughly clean motherly woman, and would do well by the child. 

All the same, when Jane came back from Stokeley next day and unfoldedthe parcel she had brought from the draper's there, he could not helpfeeling that that somewhat dingy lavender, though it might wash like arag, was, to say the least, uninteresting, and the texture of theflannel, even to his undiscriminating eye, was a trifle rough andcoarse for baby limbs. 

He knew nothing (how should he?) of the cut and make of baby clothes, but somehow, these, under Jane's scissors and needle, did not take suchattractive proportions as those she had prepared for the other baby;nor did the stitches appear so careful and minute, though Jane's worstenemy, if she had any, could not have accused her of putting bad workeven into the hem of a duster, let alone a baby's frock. He alsonoticed that, industriously as she worked at the lavender print, herardour was not sufficient to last beyond bedtime, and that, when theclock struck ten, her work was put away, without any apparentreluctance, even when, to all appearances, it was so near completionthat anyone would have given the requisite ten minutes just from themere desire of finishing. 

That Sunday afternoon, when the curious name Zoe, sounding across thechurch in the strange clergyman's voice, startled the organist, who hadnot expected the christening to take place that day, one of thedistracting thoughts which made him make so many mistakes in the music, was wondering what Jane Sands would think of the name, and whether itwould rouse any suspicion in her mind and enlighten her a little as towho the baby at Mrs Gray's really was. The name was full of memoriesand associations to him; surely it must be also a little to Jane Sands. 

But of all Sunday afternoons in the year, she had chosen this to goover to Stokeley church. Why, parson and clerk were hardly moreregular in their attendance than Jane Sands as a rule; it was almost anunheard-of thing for her seat to be empty. But to-day it was so, andthe row of little boys whom her gentle presence generally awed intotolerable behaviour, indulged unchecked in all the ingeniousnaughtiness that infant mind and body are capable of in church. 

She came in rather late with his tea, apologising for having kept himwaiting. 

'It was christening Sunday, ' she said, and then she looked at himrather wistfully. 

Perhaps she has heard, he thought; perhaps the neighbours have told herthe name, and she is beginning to guess. 

'And the baby has been called'---- she hesitated and glanced timidly athim. 

'Well?' he said encouragingly, 'what is the name?'

'Edith, ' she answered, 'was one name. '

Pshaw! it was the baby at her sister's she was talking of all the time!He turned irritably away. 

'He can't bear to hear the name, even now; or, perhaps, he's cross atbeing kept waiting for tea, ' thought Jane Sands. 

CHAPTER VI. 

The Good Baby--Mr Robins Comes and Goes--A Secret Power--Mr RobinsHappy--A Naughty Tiresome Gal!--The Gypsy Child

As spring glided into summer, and June's long, bright, hay-scented dayspassed by, followed by July, with its hot sun pouring down on theripening wheat and shaven hayfields, and on the trees, which hadsettled down into the monotonous green of summer, the little, brown-faced baby at the Grays' throve and flourished, and entwineditself round the hearts of the kindly people in whose care Providence, by the hands of the organist, had placed it. It grew close to themlike the branches of the Virginia creeper against a battered, ugly, oldwall, putting out those dainty little hands and fingers that cling soclose, not even the roughest wind or driving rain can tear them apart. Gray, coming in dirty and tired in the evening, after a long day's workin the hayfield or carting manure, was never too tired, nor for thematter of that too dirty, to take the baby, and let it dab its fathands on his face, or claw at his grizzled whiskers or slobberopen-mouthed kisses on his cheeks. 

Tom, who had bought a blue tie, let Zoe scrabble at that vivid article, and pull the bit of southernwood out of his button-hole, and rumple hiswell-oiled locks out of all symmetry; while Bill expended boundlessingenuity and time in cutting whistles, and fashioning whirligigs, which were summarily disposed of directly they got into the baby'shands. 

As for Mrs Gray, it is unnecessary to say that she was the mostcomplete slave of all Zoe's abject subjects, and the neighbours allagreed that she was downright silly-like over that little, brown-facedbrat as was no better--no, nor nothing to hold a candle to my Johnnie, or Dolly, or Bobby as the case might be. 

An unprejudiced observer might have thought that Mrs Gray had somereason for her high opinion of Zoe, for she was certainly a very muchprettier baby than the majority in Downside, who were generally of thedumpling type, with two currants for eyes. And she was also a verygood baby--'And easy enough too for anyone to be good, ' would be thecomment of any listening Downside mother, 'when they always gets theirown way!' which, however, is not so obvious a truth as regards babiesunder a year as it is of older people. Certainly to be put to bedawake and smiling at seven o'clock, and thereupon to go to sleep, andsleep soundly, till seven o'clock next morning, shows an amount ofvirtue in a baby which is unhappily rare, though captious readers mayattribute it rather to good health and digestion, which may also becredited, perhaps, with much virtue in older people. 

'And I do say, ' Mrs Gray was never tired of repeating to anyone who hadpatience to listen, 'as nothing wouldn't upset that blessed littleangel, as it makes me quite uneasy thinking as how she's too good tolive, as is only natural to mortal babies to have the tantrums now andthen, if it 's only from stomach-ache. '

The only person who seemed to sympathise in the Grays' admiration forthe baby was the organist. It was really wonderful, Mrs Gray said, thefancy he had taken to the child--'Ay, and the child to him too, perkingup and looking quite peart like, as soon as ever his step come alongthe path. ' The wonder was mostly in the baby taking to him, in MrsGray's opinion, as there was nothing to be surprised at in anyonetaking to the baby; but 'he, with no chick nor child of his own, andwith that quiet kind of way with him as ain't general what childrenlike; though don't never go for to tell me as Mr Robins is proud andstuck up, as I knows better. '

There was a sort of fascination about the child to the organist, andwhen he found that no one seemed to have the slightest suspicion as towho the baby really was, or why he should be interested in it, he gaveway more and more to the inclination to go to the Grays' cottage, andwatch the little thing, and trace the likeness that seemed every day togrow more and more strong to his dead wife and to her baby girl. 

Perhaps anyone sharper and less simple than Mrs Gray might have grownsuspicious of some other reason than pure, disinterested admiration forlittle Zoe, as the cause which brought the organist so often to herhouse; and perhaps, if the cottage had stood in the village street, itmight have occasioned remarks among the neighbours; but he had always, of late years, been so reserved and solitary a man that no notice wastaken of his comings and goings, and if his way took him frequentlyover the hillside and down the lane--why, it was a very nice walk, andthere was nothing to be surprised at. 

The only person who might have noticed where he went, and how long hesometimes lingered, was Jane Sands, and I cannot help thinking that inold days she would have done so; but then, as we have seen, she was notquite the same Jane Sands she used to be, or at any rate not quite whatwe used to fancy her, devoted above all things to her master and hisinterests, but much absorbed in her own matters, and in those Stokeleyfriends of hers. She had asked for a rise in her wages too, which MrRobins assented to; but without that cordiality he might have done afew months before, and he strongly suspected that when quarter-daycame, the wages went the same way as those baby clothes, for there wascertainly no outlay on her own attire, which, though alwaysscrupulously neat, seemed to him more plain and a shade more shabbythan it used to be. 

As the summer waxed and waned, the love for little Zoe grew andstrengthened in the organist's heart. It seemed a kind of possession, as if a spell had been cast on him; in old times it might have been setdown to witchcraft; and, indeed, it seemed something of the sort tohimself, as if a power he could not resist compelled him to seek outthe child--to think of it, to dream of it, to have it so constantly inhis mind and thoughts, that from there it found its way into his heart. To us, who know his secret, it may be explained as the tie of blood, the drawing of a man, in spite of himself, towards his own kith andkin; blood is thicker than water, and the organist could not rejectthis baby grandchild from his natural feelings, though he might fromhis house. And beyond and above this explanation, we may account forit, as we may for most otherwise unaccountable things, as being theleading of a wise Providence working out a divine purpose. 

Perhaps the punishment that was to come to the organist by the hands oflittle Zoe--those fat, dimpled, brown hands, that flourished about inthe air so joyously when he whistled a tune to her--began from the veryfirst, for it was impossible to think of the child without thinking ofthe mother, and to look at Zoe without seeing the likeness that hisfond fancy made far plainer than it really was; and to think of themother and to see her likeness was to remember that meeting in thechurchyard, and the sad, pleading voice and hollow cough, and the colddenial he had given, and the beating rain and howling wind of thatdreary night. He grew by degrees to excuse himself to himself, and toplead that he was taken unawares, and that, if she had not taken hisanswer as final, but had followed him to the house, he should certainlyhave relented. 

And then he went a step further. I think it was one July day, when thebaby had been more than usually gracious to him, and he had ventured, in Mrs Gray's absence, to lift her out of the cradle and carry her downthe garden path, finding her a heavier weight than when he had firsttaken her to the Grays' cottage. She had clapped her hands at a great, velvet-bodied humble bee; she had nestled her curly head into his neck, and with the feeling of her soft breath on his cheek he had said tohimself: 'If Edith were to come back now, I would forgive her for thebaby's sake, for Zoe's sake. ' He forgot that he had need to beforgiven too. 'She will come back, ' he told himself, 'she will comeback to see the child. She could not be content to hear nothing moreof her baby and never to see her, in spite of what she said. And whenshe comes it shall be different, for Zoe's sake. '

He wondered if Jane Sands knew where Edith was, or ever heard from her. He sometimes fancied that she did, and yet, if she knew nothing of thebaby, it was hardly likely that she had any correspondence with themother. He was puzzled, and more than once he felt inclined to let herinto the secret, or at least drop some hint that might lead to itsdiscovery. 

It pleased him to imagine her delight over Edith's child, her pride in, and devotion to it; she would never rest till she had it under hercare, and ousted Mrs Gray from all share in little Zoe. And yet, whenever he had got so far in his inclination to tell Jane, some proofof her absorption in that baby at Stokeley, for whom he had a sort ofjealous dislike, threw him back upon himself, and made him doubt heraffection for her young mistress, and resolve to keep the secret tohimself, at any rate for the present. 

He came the nearest telling her one day in August, when, as he waswatering his flowers in the evening, Mrs Gray passed the gate with thatvery little Zoe, who was so constantly in his thoughts. 

She had a little white sun-bonnet on, which Jane Sands had actuallybestowed upon her--rather grudgingly, it is true, and only becausethere was some defect about it which made it unworthy of the pamperedchild at Stokeley. Zoe saw the organist, or, at least, Mrs Grayimagined that she did, for the cry she gave might equally well havebeen intended as a greeting to a pig down in the ditch. 

'Well a-never, who 'd a' thought! she see you ever so far off, blessher! and give such a jump as pretty near took her out of my arms. Whythere! Mr Robins don't want you, Miss Saucy, no one don't want suchrubbige; a naughty, tiresome gal! as won't go to sleep, but keepsjumping and kicking and looking about till my arm's fit to drop withaching. '

Jane Sands was sitting at work just outside the kitchen door at theside of the house. He had seen her there a minute ago when he filledthe watering-can at the pump, and a sudden impulse came into his mindto show her the child. 

He did not quite decide what he should say, or what he should do, whenthe recognition, which he felt sure was unavoidable, followed the sightof the child; but he just yielded to the impulse, and took the childfrom Mrs Gray's arms and carried her round to the back-door. Therecognition was even more instantaneous than he had expected. As hecame round the corner of the house, with the little, white-bonnetedgirl in his arms, Jane sprang up with a cry of glad surprise anddelight, such as swept away in a moment all his doubt of her loyalty tohim and his, and all his remembrance of her absorption in that littlecommon child at Stokeley. She made a step forward and then stoodperfectly still, and the light and gladness faded out of her face, andher hands, that had been stretched out in delighted greeting, fell dulland lifeless to her sides. 

He said nothing, but held the child towards her; it was only naturalthat she should doubt, being so unprepared, but a second glance wouldconvince her. 

'I thought, ' she said, looking the baby over, with what in a less kind, gentle face, might have been quite a hard, critical manner, 'I thoughtfor a minute'----

'Well?'

'I was mistaken, ' she said; 'of course I was mistaken. ' And then sheadded to herself more than to him, 'It is not a bit like'----

'Look again, ' he said, 'look again; don't you see a likeness?'

'Likeness? Oh, I suppose it's the gypsy child up at Mrs Gray's, andyou mean the likeness to the woman who came here that day she was left;but I don't remember enough of her to say. It's plain the child's agypsy. What a swarthy skin, to be sure!'

Why, where were her eyes? To Mr Robins it was little Edith over again. He wondered that all the village did not see it and cry out on him. 

But it was not likely that after this his confidence should go further, and just then the child began a little grumble, and he took her backhastily to Mrs Gray with a disappointed, crest-fallen feeling. 

Jane Sands was conscious that her reception of the baby had not beensatisfactory, and she tried to make amends by little complimentaryremarks, which annoyed him more than her indifference. 

'A fine, strong child, and does Mrs Gray great credit. '

'It's a nice bright little thing, and I daresay will improve as itgrows older. '

She could not imagine why the organist grunted in such a surly way inreply to these remarks, for what on earth could it matter to him whatanyone thought of a foundling, gypsy child?

CHAPTER VII. 

Gray Taken to the Hospital--Bill and the Baby--Mrs Gray HomeAgain--Edith, Come Home!

It was near the end of September that John Gray broke his leg. Theywere thrashing out a wheat-rick at Farmer Benson's, and somehow hetumbled from the top of the rick, and fell with his leg bent under him, and found that he could not stand when he tried to struggle up to hisfeet. 

They ran to tell 'his missus, ' who came straight off from the washtub, with the soapsuds still about her skinny red elbows, catching up Zoefrom the cradle as she passed, at sight of whom Gray, in spite of thepain and the deadly faintness that was dimming his eyes and clutchinghis breath, made an effort to chirrup and snap his fingers at thelittle one. 

'It's his innerds as is hurted, ' explained one of the bystanders, withthat wonderful openness and way of making the worst of everything thatis found in that class. 

'The spine of his back most like, ' said another, 'like poor Johnson, over to Stokeley, as never walked another step arter his fall. '

'Ay, he do look mortal bad! 'Tis a terrible bad job!'

'Cut off like a flower!' sighed one of the women. 'There, bear up, mydear, ' to Mrs Gray, with whom she had not been on speaking terms forsome weeks, owing to a few words about her cat's thieving propensities, 'Dontee take on! I knows well enough what you feels, as is only threeweeks since father was took with his fit. '

'Don't be skeered, old gal, ' sounded Gray's voice, odd and unnatural tothe ears of the hearers, and far away and independent to himself, 'Iain't so bad as that comes to'----

And then mercifully he became unconscious, for to go six miles with abroken leg in a cart without springs on the way to the hospital is nota joke, and the neighbours' kindly attempts to bring him round werehappily unsuccessful. The worst part of that drive fell to the shareof his wife, who sat holding his head on her lap as they jolted along, trying to keep the jars and bumps from jerking his leg, though all thetime she firmly believed he was dead, and was already, in her dulledmind, making pitiful little arrangements about mourning and thefuneral, and contemplating, with dreary equanimity, a widowed existencewith three-and-sixpence a week for her and Tom and Bill and Zoe to liveupon. She never left Zoe out of the calculation, even when it becamemost difficult to adjust the number of mouths to be fed with the amountof food to be put into them, and over this dark future fell the darkershadow of the workhouse, which closes the vista of life to most of thepoor. No wonder they live entirely in the present, and shut their eyespersistently to the future!

There was not much going back into the past when she was a girl and the'master' a lad, and they went courting of a Sunday afternoon along thegreen lanes. Life had been too matter-of-fact and full of hard work toleave much sentiment even in memory. 

Mr Robins heard of the accident in the evening, and went up to thecottage, where he found Bill taking care of Zoe, who was having a finetime of it, having soon discovered that she had only to cry foranything that evening to get it, and that it was an occasion fordisplaying a will of her own in the matter of going to bed, and beingpreternaturally wide awake and inclined for a game, when on othernights she was quite content to be laid down in the wooden cradle, which was rapidly becoming too small for her increasing size. 

Poor Bill had been at school when the accident happened, and, ofcourse, the neighbours had made the very worst of the matter, so thepoor boy hardly knew what part of his father had not been crushed orinjured, or if he had been killed on the spot, or had been taken barelyalive to the hospital. The baby had been pushed into his arms, so thathe could not go up to the farm, nor find Tom to learn the rights of thematter; so that, when Mr Robins came into the cottage, he found bothBill and the baby crying together, the fire out, and the kettle upsetinto the fender. 

'Give me the child, ' the organist said. And Bill obeyed, as he did atthe choir practice when he was told to pass a hymn-book, and toomiserable to wonder much at this new aspect of his master, and atseeing him take the baby as if he knew all about it, and sit down infather's arm-chair. 

'See if you can't make the fire burn up, ' he went on; 'the child'scold. '

Zoe seemed well content with her new nurse, and left off crying, andsat blinking gravely at the fire, which Bill, much relieved at havingsomething definite to do, soon roused up to a sparkling, cracklingblaze with some dry sticks; while Mr Robins warmed her small, pink feet. 

Bill would certainly have been surprised if he could have seen what waspassing in the organist's mind, a proposal ripening into a firm resolvethat he would take the child home that very night and tell Jane who shewas. Let the village talk as it might, he did not mind; let them saywhat they pleased. 

He knew enough of village reports to guess that Gray was not as badlyhurt as every one declared; but still, even a trifling accident meant, at any rate, a week or two of very short commons at the cottage, perhaps less milk for the baby, or economy over fuel, and the Septemberdays were growing cold and raw, and there had been more than one frostin the mornings, and the baby's little toes were cold to his warm hand. Mrs Gray, too, would be occupied and taken up with her husband, andlittle Zoe would be pushed about from one to another, and he had heardthat there was scarlatina about, and the relieving officer had beentelling him that very morning how careless the people were aboutinfection. 

The cottage looked quite different in the blazing firelight, and Bill, encouraged by the organist's presence, tidied up the place, where thewashtub stood just as Mrs Gray had left it; and he set the kettle on toboil, so that when Mrs Gray and Tom came in it presented quite acomfortable appearance. 

Mrs Gray came in tired and tearful, but decidedly hopeful, having leftGray comfortably in bed with his leg set, and having receivedreassuring opinions from nurse and doctor: and the first alarm andapprehension being removed, there was a certain feeling of importancein her position as wife of the injured man, and excitement at a visitto the country town, both ways in a cart, which does not happen oftenin a life-time. 

The baby, thanks to the warmth and Mr Robins's nursing, had fallenasleep in his arms. Mrs Gray was so much confused and bewildered bythe events of the day, that she would hardly have been surprised to seethe Queen with the crown on her head sitting there in the master'sarm-chair, quite at home like, and holding the baby on one arm and thesceptre on the other; and Tom was of too phlegmatic a disposition to besurprised at anything. So they made no remark, and Mr Robins laid thebaby, still asleep, in Bill's arms, and went away. 

Such a beautiful, quiet September night, with great, soft starsoverhead, and the scent of fallen leaves in the air; the path beneathhis feet was soft with them, and as he passed under the elms which bydaylight were a blaze of sunny gold, some leaves dropped gently on hishead. 

'To-morrow, ' he said, 'I will bring little Zoe home, and I will let hermother--I will let Edith know that the child is with me, and that ifshe likes'---- It needed but a word, he felt sure, to bring the motherto the baby, the daughter to her father. 

He stood for a moment by the church-yard gate, close to the spot wherethat bitter, cruel parting had been, and fancied what the meeting wouldbe. After all, what was his feeling for little Zoe, and hisimagination of what his little grandchild would be to him in thefuture, to the delight of having Edith's arms round his neck andholding her to his heart once more?

'Edith, ' he whispered softly, as he turned away; 'Edith, come home!'

'I wonder, ' he said to Jane Sands that night; 'I wonder if you couldfind out an address for me?'

She was folding up the tablecloth, and she stopped with a puzzled look. 

'An address? Whose?'

'Well, ' he said, without looking at her, 'I fancy there are still someof the Blakes, (the word came out with a certain effort) 'living atBilton, and perhaps you could find out from them the address I want;or, perhaps, ' he added quickly, for she understood now, and eager wordswere on her lips, 'perhaps you know. There! never mind now; if youknow, you can tell me to-morrow. '

CHAPTER VIII. 

Preparation--The Room Furnished--Mrs Gray at Work--The Baby Gone--TheGypsy Mother--The Gypsy's Story--A Foolish Fancy--Something HasHappened--The Real Baby

Morning very often brings other counsels, but this was not the casewith Mr Robins, for when he got up next day he was more than everresolved to carry out his intention of bringing little Zoe home, andletting her mother know that a welcome awaited her in her old home. 

He had not slept very much during the night, for his mind had been toofull of the change that was coming in his life, and of the differencethat the presence of Edith and little Zoe would make in the dull, oldhouse. Sad and worn and altered, was she! Ah! that would soon passaway with kindness and care and happiness, and the cough that hadsounded so hollow and ominous should be nursed away, and Edith shouldbe a girl again, a girl as she ought to be yet by right of her years;and those five years of suffering and estrangement should be altogetherforgotten as if they had never been. 

He went into the bedroom next his, that had been Edith's--that was tobe Edith's again--and, looking round it, noticed with satisfaction thatJane had kept it just as it had been in the old days; and he pushed thebed a little to one side to make room for a cot to stand beside it, acot which he remembered in the night as having stood for years in thelumber-room up in the roof, and which he now with much difficultydragged out from behind some heavy boxes, and fitted together, wishingthere had been time to give it a coat of paint, and yet glad, with atremulous sort of gladness, that there was not, seeing that it would bewanted that very night. 

And just then Jane Sands came up to call him to breakfast, and stoodlooking from the cot to her master's dusty coat, with such a look ofdelighted comprehension on her face, that the organist felt that nowords were needed to prepare her for what was going to happen. 

'I thought, ' he said, 'it had better be brought down. '

'Where shall it go?' she asked. 

'In Miss----in the room next mine, ' he said, 'and it will want a goodairing. '

'Shall I make up the bed too?' she asked. 

'Yes, you may as well. '

'Oh, master, ' she said, the tears shaking in her voice and shining inher eyes; 'will they be wanted soon? Will they, maybe, be wantedto-night?'

His own voice felt suspiciously shaky; his own eyes could not see theold cot, nor Jane's beaming face quite plainly, so he only gave a gruffassent and turned away. 

'What a good, kind creature she is!' he thought. 'What a welcome shewill give Edith and Edith's little Zoe!'

During the morning he heard her up in the room sweeping and scrubbing, as if for these five years it had been left a prey to dust and dirt;and when he went out after dinner to give a lesson at Bilton, she wasstill at it with an energy worthy of a woman, half her age. 

That stupid little girl at Bilton, who generally found her music-lessonsuch an intolerable weariness to the flesh, and was conscious that itwas no less so to her teacher, found the half-hour to-day quitepleasant. Mr Robins had never been so kind and cheerful, quiteamusing, laughing at her mistakes, and allowing her to play just thethings she knew best, and to get up in the middle of the lesson to goto the window and see a long procession of gypsy vans going by toSmithurst fair. 

It was such a very beautiful day; perhaps it was this that producedsuch a good effect on the organist's temper. There had been a frostthat morning, but it was not enough to strip the trees, but only toturn the elms a richer gold, and the beeches a warmer red, and the oaksa ruddier brown; while in the hedges the purple dogwood, and hawthorn, and bramble leaves made a wonderful variety of rich tints in the fullbright sunshine, which set the birds twittering with a momentarydelusion that it might be spring. 

He did not come back over the hill, and past the Grays' cottage, for hewas going to fetch the child that evening; but he came home by theroad, meeting many more of those gypsy vans which had distracted hispupil's attention, and looking with kindliness on the swarthy men andbronze dark-eyed women, for the sake of little Zoe, who had been sooften called the gypsy baby. 

When he reached home he found the room prepared with all the care JaneSands could lavish. He had thought when he went in that morning thatit was just as Edith had left it, and all in the most perfect order;but now the room was a bower of daintiness and cleanliness, and allEdith's old treasures had been set out in the very order she used toarrange them--why! even her brush and comb were laid ready on thedressing-table, and a pair of slippers by the bedside, and a smallbunch of autumn anemones and Czar violets was placed in a little glassbeside her books. He smiled, but with tears in his eyes, as he saw allthese loving preparations. 

'Edith can hardly be here to-night, ' he said to himself, 'but Zoewill. ' And he smoothed the pillow of the cot close to the bedside, anddrew the curtain more closely over its head. 

He found his tea set ready for him when he came down, but Jane Sandshad gone out, and he was rather glad of it, as she had watched him thatmorning with an eager expectant eye, and he did not know what to say toher. It would be easier when he brought the baby and actually put itinto her arms. 

The sun had set when he had finished tea, a blaze of splendour settlingdown into dull purple and dead orange, leaving a stripe of pale-greensky over the horizon, flecked with a few soft brown clouds tinged withred. 

But envious night hastened to cover up and deaden the colours of thesky, and the almost equally gorgeous tints of tree and hedge; and, bythe time Mr Robins reached the Grays' cottage, darkness had settleddown as deep as on that evening four months ago, when he carried thebaby and left it there. 

Now, as then, the cottage door was open, and Mrs Gray sat at work withthe candle close to her elbow, every now and then giving a long sniffor a sigh, that made the tallow candle flicker and tremble. He hadalmost forgotten her husband's accident in his absorption in the baby;but these sniffs recalled it to his mind, and he thought he would givethem a helping hand while Gray was in the hospital. 

'She has been kind to my little Zoe, ' he thought, 'and I will notforget it in a hurry. She shall come and see the child whenever shelikes; and Edith will be good to her, for she has been like a mother tothe baby all these months. '

Close by where Mrs Gray sat he could see the foot of the old cradle andthe rocker within reach of the woman's foot; but Zoe must be asleep, for there was no rocking necessary, and Mrs Gray did not turn from herwork to look at the child, though she stopped from time to time to wipeher eyes on her apron. 

'She is taken up with her husband, ' he said to himself; 'it is as wellthat I am going to take the child away, as she will have no thought togive her now. '

And then he went into the cottage, with a tap on the open door toannounce his presence. 

'Good evening, Mrs Gray, ' he said in a subdued voice, so as not to wakethe baby. But he might have spared himself this precaution, for thenext glance showed him that the cradle was empty. 

'Bless you, Mr Robins, ' the woman said, 'you give me quite a start, coming in so quiet like. But, there! I 'm all of a tremble, theleastest thing do terrify me. You might knock me down with a feather. First one thing and then another! The master yesterday and the babyto-day!'

'What!' he said, so sharp and sudden, that it stopped the flow of wordsfor a moment. 'What do you mean! Is the baby in bed up-stairs?What's the matter? It's not the scarlatina? Not'----

'Bless you!' she said, 'why I thought you'd a-knowed. It ain't thescarlatina; the baby was as well and bonnie as ever when she went. She've agone! her mother come and fetch her this very day, and took herright off. Ay! but she were pleased to see how the little thing hadgot on, and she said as she 'd never forget my kindness, and how she'dbring her to see me whenever she come this way. But, there! I do missher terrible. Why, it's 'most worse than the master himself. '

The organist hardly listened to what she was saying after the fact ofthe mother having come and fetched her away. Edith had come for herbaby! How had she known? Why had she done it to-day? Could Jane havelet her know? And had she come so quickly to take the child herself toher old home? His first impulse was to turn and hasten home; perhapsEdith and Zoe were there already, and would find him absent. But hecould not go without a word to Mrs Gray, who was wiping her eyes in herapron and unconsciously rocking the empty cradle. 

'You will often see her, ' he said consolingly; 'she will not be veryfar away. '

'Oh, I don't know about that; them gypsies go all over the place, upand down the country, and they don't always come back for the fairs;though she says as they don't often miss Smithurst. '

'Gypsies?' he said puzzled. 

'Ay, the mother 's a gypsy sure enough, and I've said it all along, andthe child's the very image of her; there wasn't no doubt, when one sawthe two together, as they was mother and child. '

'Are you sure she was a gypsy?' He had often said in fun that Edithwas a regular little gypsy, but he would never have thought that anyone could really mistake her for one; and besides, Mrs Gray must haveknown Edith well enough at any rate by sight in the old days; andchanged as she was, it was not beyond all recognition. 

'Oh, there wasn't no mistaking, and the van as she belonged to waitedjust outside the village, for I went down along with her and seed it, painted yeller with red wheels. I knowed Zoe was gypsy born, for she'done of them charms round her neck as I didn't meddle with, for they dosay as there's a deal of power in them things, and that gypsies can'tbe drownded or ketch fevers and things as long as they keeps 'em. '

Mr Robins sat down in the chair opposite Mrs Gray; an odd, cold sort ofapprehension was stealing over him, and the pleasant dream of home andEdith and Zoe, in which he had been living through the day, was fadingaway with every word the woman said. 

'The funny part of it were that she vowed and declared as she put thechild at your door, and never came this way at all; leastways, fromwhat she said it must abeen your house, for she said it was hard by thechurch and had a thick hedge, and that there was a kind sorter body asshe see there in the morning, as must abeen Mrs Sands, and nobody elsefrom her account. She said she was in a heap of trouble just then, herhusband ill and a deal more, and she was pretty nigh at her wits' end, and that, without thinking twice what she were about, she wropt thebaby up and laid it close agin the door of the house where she'd seenthe kind-looking body. She would have it as it was there, say what Iwould; but, maybe, poor soul, she were mazed, and hardly knew where shewere. 

'She went to your house to-day, and Mrs Sands were quite put out withher, being busy too, and expecting company, and thought it were justher impidence; but there! I knows what trouble is, and how it justmazes a body, for I could no more tell where I went nor what I didyesterday than that table there. And another queer thing is as shedidn't know nothing about the name, and neither she nor her husbandcan't read or write noways, so she couldn't have wrote it down, and she'd never heard tell of such a name as Zoe, and didn't like it neither. She'd always ameant it to be Rachel, as had been her mother's namebefore her, and her grandmother's too. '

'Are you quite certain she was the mother?'

'Certain? Why, you 'd only to see the two together to be sure of it. I'd not have let her go, not were it ever so, if it hadn't been asclear as daylight; and just now too, when I seems to want her for a bitof comfort. ' And here Mrs Gray relapsed into her apron. 

Mr Robins sat for a minute looking at her in silence, and then got up, and without a word went out into the dark night, mechanically takingthe way to his house, and then turning on to the high-road toSmithurst, tramping along through the mud and dead leaves with a dull, heavy persistence. 

Anything was better than going back to the empty silence of his houseand Jane Sands' expectant face, and the pretty, white-curtained roomwith the cot all ready for little Zoe, who was already miles away alongthat dark road before him, sleeping, perhaps, in some dirty gypsy vanput up on some bit of waste land by the roadside, or, perhaps, surrounded by the noise and glare of the fair with its shows androundabouts. His little Zoe! he could not possibly have been soutterly deceived all through; the baby who had lain on his bed, whoselittle face he had felt as he carried her up to the Grays' cottage inthe dark, whom he had seen day after day, and never failed to noticethe likeness, growing stronger with the child's growth. Was it all adelusion? all the foolish fancy of a fond, old man? He tried hard tobelieve that it was impossible that he could have been so deceived, andyet from the very first he felt that it was so, and that the love thathad been growing in his heart all these months had been lavished on agypsy baby whose face most likely he should never see again. 

And all his plans for the future, his dreams of reparation, of tenderreconciliation with Edith, and of happy, peaceful days that wouldobliterate the memory of past trouble and alienation, they had allvanished with the gypsy baby; life was as empty as the cradle by MrsGray's side. 

Where was he to find his daughter? Where had she wandered that nightwhen the pitiless rain fell and the sullen wind moaned? Was that thelast he should ever see of her, with the white, wan, pleading faceunder the yew-tree? And would that despairing voice, saying 'Father!'haunt his ears till his dying day? And would the wailing cry thatfollowed him as he went to his house that night be the only thing heshould ever know of his grandchild, the real little Zoe whom he hadrejected?

He was several miles away along the Smithurst road when he firstrealised what he was doing, brought to the consciousness, perhaps, bythe fact of being weary and footsore and wet through from a fine rainthat had begun falling soon after he left the village. It must begetting late too; many of the cottages he passed showed no light fromthe windows, the inmates most likely being in bed. 

Painfully and wearily he toiled back to Downside; he seemed to have nospirit left to contend against even such trifling things as mud andinequalities in the road, and when a bramble straying from the hedgecaught his coat and tore it, he could almost have cried in feeblevexation of spirit. Downside street was all dark and quiet, but fromthe organist's house a light shone out from the open door and down thegarden path, making a patch of light on the wet road. 

Some one stood peering out into the darkness, and, at the sound of hisdragging, stumbling footsteps, Jane Sands ran down to the gate. Thelong waiting had made her anxious, for she was breathless and tremblingwith excitement. 

'Where have you been?' she said; 'we got so frightened. Why are you solate? Oh, dearie me!' as she caught sight of his face. 'You 're ill!Something has happened! There, come in, doee, now; you look fit todrop!'

He pushed by her almost roughly into the house, and dropped downwearily into the arm-chair. He was too worn out and exhausted tonotice anything, even the warmth and comfort of the bright fire and thesupper ready on the table. He tossed his soaked hat on the ground, andleaning his elbows on his knees and his head on his hands, sat boweddown with the feeling of utter wretchedness. 

Day after day, night after night, till his life's end, plenty andcomfort and neatness and respectability and warmth in dull monotony;while outside somewhere in the cold and rain, in poverty and want andwretchedness, wandered Edith with the wailing baby in her arms. 

'You can go to bed, ' he said to Jane Sands; 'I don't want any supper. '

She drew back and went softly out of the room, but some one else wasstanding there, looking down at the bowed white head with eyes fullereven of pity and tears than Jane's had been; and then she, too, leftthe room, and with a raised finger to Jane, who was waiting in thepassage, she went up-stairs and, as if the way were well known to her, to the little room which had been got ready so uselessly for theorganist's daughter. 

There, sheltered by the bed-curtain, was the cot where Zoe was to havelain, and there, wonderful to relate, a child's dark head might beseen, deep in the soft pillow, deeper in soft sleep. 

And then this strangely presuming intruder in the organist's housesoftly took up the sleeping child, and wrapping a shawl round it, carried it, still sleeping, downstairs, the dark lashes resting on theround cheek flushed with sleep and of a fairer tint than gypsy Zoe's, and the rosy mouth half-open. 

The organist still sat with his head in his hands, and did not stir asshe entered, not even when she came and knelt down on the hearth infront of him. 

Jane Sands was unusually tiresome to-night, he thought; why could shenot leave him alone?

And then against his cold hands clasped over his face was laidsomething soft and warm and tender, surely a little child's hand! and avoice (a voice he had never thought to hear again till maybe it soundedas his accuser before the throne of grace) said: 'Father, for Zoe'ssake. '

THE END. 

 Edinburgh; Printed by W & R. Chambers, Limited. 

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