“Oh-h—yes—here—it must be this?” Gertie gasped, as she passed the package to Edith, whose heart beat with an undefined dread lest after all there might be some mistake and her darling be wrested from her.
“Shall I read it, or you?” she said, and Gertie replied: “You;—but read aloud, if you please. I cannot wait to know.”
Edith could not read it aloud, and Gertie did not wait, but leaning over her mother’s shoulder read the letter with her. It was as follows:
“Hampstead, April 10, 18—.
“Mrs. Col. Schuyler—Madame: Warned by a twinge in my heart and about my vitals that I may be taken away suddenly, I am going to commit to paper the true history of Gertrude Westbrooke, the girl known as my adopted child. Mrs. Schuyler, did you ever hear of a young girl,—who came one day with her mother to a dreary lodging in Dorset Street, London? They had the back rooms looking into a dirty court, and the girl had a baby born there, a little girl baby, with eyes like robin’s eggs.
“There was a housemaid, who waited on the ladies in No. ——; her name was Mary Stover, and she admired the young lady so much, and was curious about her, especially after the birth of the baby. That housemaid was me, and the lady was you, whom your mother called Heloise. She was Mrs. Fordham then, and I did not like her much, and after I accidentally heard what she said to you about sending the child away, I kept a watch on her.
“I was going to your room with a jug of water, and heard it all, and saw her the night she went out with a bundle under her arm. I was sure the bundle was the baby, and, when she got back, I let myself out on to that little balcony under your window, and waited till I heard her tell you where she had taken the child. There certainly was a Providence in it that I had a sister nurse in that very hospital, and, to make sure your mother told you true, I got leave to go next day to see my sister.
“By a little management, I found that a girl baby had been left there the night before, with Heloise pinned on its dress, as Mrs. Fordham said, and that it was further marked on the bosom with a drop of blood. I got Anne to show the baby to me and knew it for the same I had seen in your room. You remember I tended it an hour or more once.
“I love children, and this one interested me more than I can tell; and I said to myself I’ll keep watch of it, and the mother, too, and some time maybe I can unravel the mystery and bring them together. From what I overheard, I believed you had been married, and that your husband was dead, and that was all I knew of him. But I pitied you, and loved the child, and without telling Anne why, I made her promise to be very kind to the little one.
“Mother lived in Dorset Street, too, and as she was very lonesome from week’s end to week’s end without us, I took the plan to have her take the baby for ours. It was hard work to bring her to it, and Anne opposed it, too; but something seemed to push me on and say that it must be done, and I got her consent, and she took Heloise to our house in No. ——, where she was just like a little sunbeam, and it was hard to tell which loved her the most, mother, or Anne, or me. I claimed her for mine, and dressed her with my wages, and meant to bring her up above what we were, if I could. When you left Dorset Street I lost track of you for a while, but that only made me love baby more. Soon after you left I got another place, and a better one. I was waiting-maid to a Mrs. Westbrooke, who lived in a very fine place. She, too, had a baby girl named Gertrude, and, when it died suddenly of croup, I thought she would have mourned herself to death for it.