"But how can you have two mothers?" Miss Eastman inquired, with a smile that was not a good smile. "Tell me, David, tell me whose mother am I?"
"You?" he asked with puzzled anxiety. Then he stopped short. It is not easy to steal pictures and tell wrong stories about them. He did not know what to do. Everything was against him, and he began to cry again.
It was now that Miss Eastman passionately seized the little boy in her arms.
"Don't you believe that!" she exclaimed, her words throbbing with the hurt he had given her. "I am your mother, David—I!"
CHAPTER XI[ToC]
APOTHEOSIS
