In a second mother and daughter sobbed in each other’s arms.
Mr. Legare wept, too, and even the matron of the asylum, hardened to many a scene like this, stood with her handkerchief to her eyes.
Hattie alone, hearing a shuffling and well-known step coming down the stairs, kept her composure, for she knew she would need it all.
“Sakes alive! What’s goin’ on here? Who is that that’s a-cryin’ over my bound-girl?” cried Miss Scrimp, addressing Hattie, the only one who confronted her.
“Hush, woman! This scene is too sacred for you to intrude upon,” said Hattie, sternly. “There a mother, a loving mother, weeps in joy over her long lost child, restored at last by the blessing of God to her bosom.”
“Her child? Why, it’s Jess—my bound-girl!” sneered Miss Scrimp.
“Woman, she is your bound-girl no longer,” said the matron of the asylum. “You deceived us when once before we came here to find her, and falsely said she had run away from you. Now, we, who have the right, annul the indentures, and restore her to her mother.”
“It sha’n’t be!” screamed Miss Scrimp. “She’s mine by law, and I’ll have her, if I have to call in all the police in the ward.”
“One word more, one single threat, and I will call the police to arrest you, and never pause in my prosecution until you rest inside a prison’s bars, there to stay for years, as you deserve.”
Miss Scrimp shivered from head to foot when she heard those words, for she had for an instant forgotten that she was wholly in the power of Miss Butler.