Margaret's news that a home had been secured for little Louis was received with manifest relief.
"And is it a good woman that has taken him?" the mother asked, clasping her hands, "Will she be good to him? Will she teach him to be good?"
"I am sure she will try to do both," said Margaret. She felt a disinclination to tell the girl just yet that she herself was the one who was to take him. She would find out from her the story of her life first and then tell her. "But she is anxious to know something more about the child. Would—" she found it difficult to phrase her sentence—"would you be willing to tell this lady, through me, something of your life?"
"My life?" faltered the girl, her eyes growing frightened. "Why—why does she want to know—about my life?"
"Her friends think that she should know something of the little boy's—antecedents." It was Mrs. Pennybacker's word, not hers. "No, do not misunderstand me—" a slight flush had crept into the sick girl's face—"it is not idle curiosity, nor is it that she doubts you. This lady wishes to know enough to satisfy the child when, in after years, he begins to want to know something about his own history. There is—pardon me—I feel that I must ask—there is no blot of any kind upon his name?"
Her own face crimsoned as she put the question, but it was one that Mrs. Pennybacker insisted must be asked, and indeed, as she talked to the sick girl now, she felt herself that she must ask it. A child taken from a Home so often had suspicion cast upon its parentage. The greatest kindness she could do him was to have a plain answer to a direct question—cruel though it seemed.
The sick girl lay very still. When at last she spoke she looked into Margaret's face and answered,
"There is no blot upon his name."
Her breath was labored. She put her hand once to her throat. Then summoning her strength she went on rapidly. "He was born in lawful wedlock. His father was—a carpenter,—a plain man but an honorable one. He died when Louis was a year old—of pneumonia. We were poor but have always been respectable."
"I am very glad to know this." said Margaret, filled with contrition at having forced her to say it. "I hope you will not misunderstand my asking about it. The friends of this lady are more importunate about this thing than she is, and—"