Born in a. hospital, owning that repulsive countenance there beside her as parent?

Heavy cold drops oozed out, and glistened on her brow, and she shivered from head to foot, rocking herself to and fro.

Almost desperate as she thought of the mysterious circumstances that seemed to entangle her mother as in some inextricable net, the girl suddenly started up, and exclaimed: 

“It is a fraud, a wicked fraud, or you would never have left me so long in peace.  My father was, must have been, a gentleman; I know, I feel it!  You are—­you—­Save me, O Lord in heaven, from such a curse as that!”

He grasped her arm and hissed: 

“I am poor and obscure, it is true; but Peterson is better than no name at all, and if you are not my child, then you have no name.  That is all; take your choice.”

What a pall settled on earth and sky!  The sun shining so brightly in the west grew black, and a shadow colder and darker than death seized her soul.  Was it the least of alternate horrors to accept this man, acknowledging his paternal claim, and thereby defend her mother’s name?  How the lovely sad face of that young mother rose like a star, gilding all this fearful blackness; and her holy abiding faith in her mother proved a strengthening angel in this Gethsemane.

Rallying, she forced herself to look steadily at her companion.

“You say that your name is Peleg Peterson; why did you never come openly to the parsonage and claim me?  I know that my mother was married in that house, by Mr. Hargrove.”

“Because I never could find out where you were hid away, until my aunt, Hannah Hinton, told me the week before the great storm.  Then she promised me the marriage license, which she had found in a desk at the parsonage, on condition that I would not disturb you; as she thought you were happy and well-cared for, and would be highly educated, and I was too miserably poor to give you any advantages.  You know the license was burned by lightning, else I would show it to you.”

“Proving that you are my mother’s legal husband?”

“Certainly, else what use do you suppose I had for it.”

“Oh no!  You intended to sell it.  Hannah told me so.”

“No such thing.  Minnie does not want to own me now, and I intended to show the license to the father of the man for whom she deserted both you and me.  She has followed him to Europe, though she knows he is a married man.”

“It is false!  How dare you!  You shall not slander her dear name.  My mother could never have done that!  There is some foul conspiracy to injure her; not another word against her!  No matter what may have happened, no matter how dark and strange things look, she was not to blame.  She is right, always right; I know, I feel it!  I tell you, if the sun and the stars, and the very archangels in heaven accused her, I would not listen, I would not believe—­no—­never!  She is my mother, do you hear me?  She is my mother, and God’s own angels would go astray as soon as she!”