The woman entered, carrying the little bundle with her, and looking with wide eyes (they were at least an inch and a half across) at Enderby and his wife.  Anna could see that there was no wedding-ring on her hand.

“Your name?” said the farmer’s wife.

“My name is Caroline,” the girl whispered.  The rest was lost in the low tones of her voice.  “I want shelter,” she paused, “I want you to take the child.”

Anna took the baby and laid it carefully on the top shelf of the cupboard, then she hastened to bring a glass of water and a dough-nut, and set it before the half-frozen girl.

“Eat,” she said, “and warm yourself.”

John rose from his seat.

“I’ll have no child of that sort here,” he said.

“John, John,” pleaded Anna, “remember what the Good Book says:  ‘Things which are equal to the same thing are equal to one another!’”

John sank back in his chair.

And why had Caroline no wedding-ring?  Ah, reader, can you not guess.  Well, you can’t.  It wasn’t what you think at all; so there.  Caroline had no wedding-ring because she had thrown it away in bitterness, as she tramped the streets of the great city.  “Why,” she cried, “should the wife of a man in the penitentiary wear a ring.”

Then she had gone forth with the child from what had been her home.

It was the old sad story.

She had taken the baby and laid it tenderly, gently on a seat in the park.  Then she walked rapidly away.  A few minutes after a man had chased after Caroline with the little bundle in his arms.  “I beg your pardon,” he said, panting, “I think you left your baby in the park.”  Caroline thanked him.

Next she took the baby to the Grand Central Waiting-room, kissed it tenderly, and laid it on a shelf behind the lunch-counter.

A few minutes an official, beaming with satisfaction, had brought it back to her.

“Yours, I think, madame,” he said, as he handed it to her.  Caroline thanked him.

Then she had left it at the desk of the Waldorf Astoria, and at the ticket-office of the subway.

It always came back.

Once or twice she took it to the Brooklyn Bridge and threw it into the river, but perhaps something in the way it fell through the air touched the mother’s heart and smote her, and she had descended to the river and fished it out.

Then Caroline had taken the child to the country.  At first she thought to leave it on the wayside and she had put it down in the snow, and standing a little distance off had thrown mullein stalks at it, but something in the way the little bundle lay covered in the snow appealed to the mother’s heart.

She picked it up and went on.  “Somewhere,” she murmured, “I shall find a door of kindness open to it.”  Soon after she had staggered into the homestead.

Anna, with true woman’s kindness, asked no questions.  She put the baby carefully away in a trunk, saw Caroline safely to bed in the best room, and returned to her seat by the fire.