One person asked questions with more show of authority, and to him Mark and Patty told part of the truth. This one person was the Rector of Brakebury. They told him that the child had been left at their door, with a letter and a sum of money. The letter said the child was legitimate and christened, and that the hundred pounds would come each year. The rector was so astonished at this story that he told it to his bishop when he dined with him.
"And what kind of a child is it?" asked the Bishop of Lansdown.
"The most marvelously beautiful creature; fairly angelic."
A few weeks later, in November, the bishop was dining with the Duke of Downsbury, and bethought himself to tell the tale, beginning:
"Does not the village of Brakebury belong entirely to your grace? and is not Mark Brace one of your tenant farmers?"
The bishop told the story, as he told every story, admirably.
"And they have no clew to the child's family," asked the duchess.
"Not the least. It was the most cleverly-managed thing I ever heard of in my life."
When the ladies returned to the drawing-room, Lady Estelle Hereford, the duke's only child, asked her mother:
"What was that story the bishop was telling?"