Mrs. Hawkins stood with her arms akimbo, looking on triumphantly.
"If she must stay, so must I," said Mrs. Ramsey, firmly.
"Very well, madam. I will see that you are protected from the woman," said the policeman.
Mrs. Ramsey thanked him, and calling her coachman, she bade him drive directly to her husband's office. Then she took up her place in a little shop, still holding Maggie by the hand.
Chapter V
A GUILTY CONSCIENCE.
It was an all-day matter. Mrs. Ramsey bravely held her place in the shop, gazed at by curious eyes, but she calmly waited the return of her carriage with her husband.
That gentleman's appearance with two officers rather took down Mrs. Hawkins, and although she still persisted in claiming Maggie, after a long parley and a visit to the office of a lawyer, the matter was finally settled, and Maggie was borne triumphantly away, and handed over to Miss Barnes.
"If there ever was a good woman whom riches cannot spoil it is Mrs. Ramsey," said the teacher, when she heard Maggie's account of her day. "You ought to thank God for such a friend, Maggie."
Thus Maggie was established in her new home. She felt the restraint, it must be admitted, and was not by any means a model child, for the life she had been living had not been one that helped her to much goodness; but she had very strong affections and a grateful heart; therefore, to remind her that Mrs. Ramsey or Edna would be disappointed in her, if she were naughty, was the surest means of bringing penitence for a fault, a means which does not always work as well with children brought up in a purer atmosphere.