Could she obey that unknown mother's behest and keep this soul white and pure? Suppose the child should be willful, full of faults, proud, hard to govern, in all points the opposite to her own simple, gentle, good little girl—would she be able by love and kindness to govern and mold her into goodness? And suppose the child grew day by day into her heart, until it seemed like her very own, and then that unknown mother came and took her away? Suppose, too, that after all her humble cares, when the mother came, she should be dissatisfied and complain of the rudeness of the child's rearing?
But Patty need not have feared that; she had herself the best of good breeding, that which comes from a generous, thoughtful, unselfish spirit.
Then she began to wonder who was the mother of this babe. She told over to herself all the ladies of the adjacent village of Brakebury; not one had a hundred pounds a year to spare. She thought of all the ladies she had met in the narrow limits of life, in which she had never been fifty miles from her home. There was not one whom it would not be the utmost absurdity to charge with the maternity of this charge.
"I give it up," said Patty aloud, with a sigh.
"Give what up?" asked Mark, starting from a reverie.
"Guessing who is the mother of this little Doris."
"So you should give it up," said honest Mark, stoutly. "A bargain is a bargain, Patty, and you know all that money is not to pay for one baby's milk, tendance, and bits of clothes; nor is it to buy our faith, for faith cannot be bought; but it is given us as pledge of a secret kept with that child's mother, and to use to defend that secret; and so we must. Questions, Patty, we must not ask nor answer; if curiosity is troublesome, we'll even bear it till it dies out naturally; we are paid for the trouble of bearing our neighbor's curiosity."
"That is true," said Patty; "we will make silence our rule."
So they sat by the fire, while the storm ceased, the winds fell, the rain-heavy grass and leaves lifted themselves, the east brightened with a new day, the birds broke forth into matin-song, and then a broad bar of sunshine fell over the kitchen floor, through the very window where the black-veiled figure had stood the night before.
"Mark," said Patty, "here is a new day."