CHAPTER XXII.
A BEAUTIFUL CHILD.
“A child of shame!” Pansy echoed, and a wave of hot color rushed over her face as she remembered the little child that had died before its young mother ever saw its face.
“Yes,” answered the stately lady, rather coldly. “He is a foundling, and was left on our steps almost three years ago. We would have sent it to the almshouse, but our old housekeeper, who has been with us so many years that we like to indulge her some, took a fancy to the little one, and begged to keep it.”
“It is a beautiful little child. I could not help falling in love with it,” said Pansy earnestly, while Juliette sneered:
“It is a pity you have not a child of your own to love!”
“I wish I had,” Pansy answered. “I am very fond of children.” And she wished within herself that she could have little Pet to carry home with her, for a wild suspicion was growing up in her heart: What if this were her own child?
Her mother had told her that her child had died, but perhaps she had deceived her. Perhaps Mr. Finley, whom she had always disliked and distrusted, had taken the child away and forced her mother to utter that falsehood. What more natural than that he should have placed it on the threshold of the Wylde mansion?
Wild suspicion grew almost into agonized certainty as she recalled the startling likeness of the child to Norman Wylde.
“Is it possible that his family can fail to see the likeness in his face?” she wondered, and, while she held with difficulty her part in the conversation going forward over the merits of different summer resorts, she was thinking wildly:
“I do not believe now that my baby died. This child, with Norman’s eyes, belongs to me. My heart claimed him the moment he appeared at the door. And he was fond of me, too. He struggled so hard to get back to me when Rosalind forced him away. Oh, I must manage somehow to see that old housekeeper soon, and find out all that I can about little Pet.”