She was allowed to spend a whole fortnight in making friends with her daughter, before a word was spoken about the future; the design of my father being through the child to win the mother. Certain people considered him not eager enough to convert the wicked: whatever apparent indifference he showed in that direction arose from his utter belief in the guiding of God, and his dread of outrunning his designs. He would follow the operations of the Spirit.
"Your forced hot-house fruits," he would say, "are often finer to look at than those which have waited for God's wind and weather; but what are they worth in respect of all for the sake of which fruit exists?"
Until an opportunity, then, was thrown in his way, he would hold back; but when it was clear to him that he had to minister, then was he thoughtful, watchful, instant, unswerving. You might have seen him during this time, as the letters of Connie informed me, often standing for minutes together watching the mother and daughter, and pondering in his heart concerning them.
Every advantage being thus afforded her, not without the stirring of some natural pangs in those who had hitherto mothered the child, the fortnight had not passed, before, to all appearance, the unknown mother was with the child the greatest favorite of all. And it was my father's expectation, for he was a profound believer in blood, that the natural and generic instincts of the child would be developed together; in other words, that as she grew in what was common to humanity, she would grow likewise in what belonged to her individual origin. This was not an altogether comforting expectation to those of us who neither had so much faith as he, nor saw so hopefully the good that lay in every evil.
One twilight, he overheard the following talk between them. When they came near where he sat, Theodora, carried by her mother, and pulling at her neck with her arms, was saying, "Tell me; tell me; tell me," in the tone of one who would compel an answer to a question repeatedly asked in vain.
"What do you want me to tell you?" said her mother. "You know well enough.
Tell me your name."
In reply, she uttered a few words my father did not comprehend, and took to be Zingaree. The child shook her petulantly and with violence, crying,—
"That's nonsense. I don't know what you say, and I don't know what to call you."
My father had desired the household, if possible, to give no name to the woman in the child's hearing.
"Call me mam, if you like."