"But he has a mother in the prison," said the matron—"a strange, fierce woman, who, somehow or other, has persuaded the authorities to leave him with her for the few days she will be here."
"His mother a prisoner, poor thing. Let me go to her, I dare say she will be glad enough to get a nice home for the boy," answered the good woman, hopefully.
"I'm afraid not," was the matron's reply; "she seems to have a sort of fierce love for the child, and is very jealous that he may become attached to some one beside herself. It was from this feeling she forced him from the poor woman who took him to nurse when only a few weeks old. He was very fond of her, and always fancies that any new face must be hers. I wonder she submits to his fancy for this young girl!"
"But it's wrong, it's abominable to keep the little fellow here. I'll tell her so, I'll expostulate," persisted Mrs. Gray; "just let me talk with this woman—just let me into her cell, madam."
The matron shook her head, and gave the bright key in her hand a little, quiet twirl, which said plainly as words, that it was of no use; but she led the way down stairs, and conducted Mrs. Gray to the prisoner's cell.
The woman was still lying with her forehead against the wall, quite motionless, but she turned her face as the matron spoke, and Mrs. Gray saw that it was drenched with tears.
The huckster woman sat down upon the bed, and took one of the prisoner's hands in hers. It was a large, but beautifully formed hand, full of natural vigor, but now it lay nerveless and inert in that kind clasp, and, for a moment, Mrs. Gray smoothed down the languid fingers with her own plump palm.
The woman, at first, shrunk from this mute kindness, and, half rising, fixed her great black eyes upon her visitor in sudden and almost fierce astonishment, but she shrunk back from the rosy kindness of that face with a deep breath, and lay motionless again.
Mrs. Gray spoke then in her own frank, cheerful way, and asked permission to take the little boy home with her. She described her comfortable old house, the garden, the poultry, the birds that built their nests in the twin maples, the quantity of winter apples laid up in the cellar. All the elements of happiness to a bright and healthy child she thus lay temptingly before the mother. Again the woman started up.
"Are you a moral reformer?" she said, with a sharp sneer.