“Mrs. Marston,” he said, sadly, “if your child had been born six months earlier, and you had asked me this question at that time, I should have answered you with eagerness in the affirmative; but she who would have given the little one a mother’s care is no longer in my home. She died five months ago this very day, and I have no one else in my family to whom I could commit the babe.”
“Then what shall I do?” murmured the woman, with knitted brows and sternly compressed lips.
“I can think only of one alternative that I should be willing to suggest,” replied the doctor.
“What is that?” she demanded, eagerly.
“Advertise for some young couple to adopt the child. You will then have an opportunity to select a permanent home for her, and escape the anxiety which her uncertain fate in a charitable institution would entail upon you. I should suppose the mere thought of it would be torture to you.”
“It is,” replied the mother, with a quick, indrawn breath, while a nervous shiver ran over her. “I will do it,” she added, the look of care vanishing from her face, which had now become to the high-minded physician more like the face of a beautiful fiend than that of a tender-hearted woman. “I will advertise in the Transcript to-morrow morning, and will offer the sum of five hundred dollars to any respectable couple who will take the babe and promise to rear and educate her as their own. I wonder why I did not think of that plan myself,” she concluded, with a sigh of relief.
“I should propose omitting the reward from the advertisement,” observed the doctor, with a slight curl of his lips.
“Why so?”
“Because in that case you would be sure that whoever applied for her was actuated by a real desire to have the little one; while, if money were offered, cupidity might be the main object in the application.”
“Perhaps you are right,” Mrs. Marston observed, thoughtfully; “and yet I believe I shall offer it. I shall, at all events, give that amount to whoever adopts the child.”