“Oh, mother,” she sobbed, laying her head in Mrs. Worthington’s lap, “I wish I had never been born.”

Sadly her wail of disappointment rang through the room, and then the convict went on with his interrupted narrative.

“When the marriage was over, Mr. Hastings took his wife to another part of the city, hiding her from his fashionable associates, staying with her most of the time, and appearing to love her so much that I thought it would not be long before I should venture to tell him the truth.  I went South on a little business which a companion and myself had planned together—­the very laudable business of stealing negroes from one State and selling them in another.  Some of you know that I was caught in my traffic, and that the negro stealer Sullivan, was safely lodged in prison, from which he was released but two days since.  Fearing there might be some mistake, I wrote from my prison home to Adah herself, but suppose it did not reach New York till after she had left it.  My poor, dear little girl, thoughts of her have helped to make me a better man than I ever was before.  I am not perfect now, but I certainly am not as hard, as wicked, or bad as when I first wore the felon’s dress.”

A casual observer would have said that Densie Densmore had heard less of that strange story than any one else, but her hearing faculties had been sharpened, and not a word was missed by her—­not a link lost in the entire narrative, and when the narrator expressed his love for his daughter, she darted upon him again, shrieking wildly: 

“And that child whom you loved was the baby you stole, and I shall see her again—­shall hear that blessed name of mother from her own sweet lips.”

A little apart from the others, his eyes fixed earnestly upon the convict, stood Hugh.  His mind, too, had gathered in every fact, but he had reached a widely different conclusion from what poor Densie had.

“Answer her,” he said, gravely, as the convict did not reply.  “Tell her if Adah be her child, or—­’Lina—­which?”

Had a clap of thunder cleft the air around her, ’Lina could not have started up sooner than she did.  The convict took his eyes away from her, pitying her so much, while Densie’s bony hand was raised as if to thrust her off, and Densie’s voice exclaimed:  “Not this, not this.  She despises me, a white nigger.  I will not be her mother.  The other one—­Densie, I named her—­she is mine—­”

The convict shook his head.  “No, Densie, not Adah, I kept her, my lawful child, and sent the other back.  It was a bold move, and I wonder it was not questioned, but Adaline’s eyes were not so black then as they are now, and though six months older than the other, she was small for her age, and cannot now be so tall as Adah.  The mark, too, must have strengthened the deception, as I knew it would, and eighteen months sometimes changes a child materially; so Eliza took it for granted that the girl she received as Adaline, and whose real name was Densie, was her own; but Adah Hastings is her daughter and Hugh’s half-sister, while this young woman is—­the child of myself and Densie Densmore!”