“‘The trail of the serpent is over all.’  Can there be pardon for the man who makes me shrink shudderingly at times from her whose little veins were fed from mine, whose pulses are but a throb from my heart, my baby!  My own baby, who, when I snatch her in my arms, smiles at me with his wonderful eyes of blue; and wellnigh maddens me with the very echo of a voice whose wily sweetness won my love, to make an hour’s pastime, a cheap toy, soon worn out, worthless and trodden under foot after three weeks’ sport!  Stooping over my baby, when she stretched her little hands and coaxed me to lift her on my lap, I have started back from the sight of her innocent face, as if a hooded viper fawned upon me; for the curse of her father’s image has smitten my only darling, my beautiful, proud child!  O God! that we had both died in that dim damp ward of the Hospital, where she first opened her eyes, unwelcomed by the father, whose features she bears!”

But beneath this Marah tide that was surging so fiercely over her long-suffering heart, bubbled the pure, sweet, incorruptible fount of mother-love, and while she studied the fair childish face her own softened, as that of some snow image whose features gradually melt as the sunlight creeps across it.  It was a picture taken after Regina’s removal to the parsonage, and represented her with the white rabbits nestling in her arms.

“My proud little Regina! my pure sensitive darling!  How much longer must we be separated?  Will the time ever come when the only earthly rest that remains for me can be taken in her soft clinging arms?  Patience—­patience.  If it were not for her—­for my baby—­I might falter even now,—­but she must, she shall be righted—­at any sacrifice, at every cost; and may the widow’s and the orphan’s God be pitiful—­be pitiful—­at last.”

She raised her child’s picture in her clasped hands, as if appealing indeed to the justice of Him who “never slumbers, nor sleeps,” and the tremor of her lips and voice told how passionate was the affection for her daughter, how powerful the motives that sustained her in the prolonged and torturing ordeal.

Restoring the portraits to their hiding-place, she locked the trunk, and as she resumed her seat seemed suddenly to recollect the letters lying on the table.

One was a brief note, from the manager of the London theatre where she had recently been engaged; the second from a celebrated money-lender, which bore only the signature, “Simon,” and was as follows: 

“DEAR MADAME,—­Since our last conversation relative to the purchase of a certain mortgage, I have ascertained that you can secure it, by adding one hundred pounds to the amount specified by the holder.  Should you still desire me to effect the transfer, delay might thwart your negotiation, and I respectfully solicit prompt instructions.”

Twice she read these lines, then slowly tore the paper into strips, shredded and threw them toward the grate, while a stony expression settled once more upon her features.  The remaining letter was post-marked New York, and addressed, in a bold, round, mercantile hand, but when the envelope had been removed, the formal angular chirography of a schoolgirl displayed itself, and as the sheet was opened there issued thence a delicate perfume that gushed like a breath of spring over the heart of the lonely mother.