“I should be glad to retain your good opinion,” she resumed, with a slight, deprecating gesture, “for you have been a good friend to me in my necessity, but a stern fate compels me to forego that. I trust, however, that I shall see you again before I leave your city.”
And she again extended her hand to him in farewell.
“If you need me—if I can serve you in any way, command me,” Dr. Turner returned, politely, but with an emphasis which plainly indicated that he should not voluntarily seek her society.
He bowed again, but barely touched the hand held out to him, and then went his way, wondering what mysterious circumstance, or combination of circumstances, could have forced this beautiful and gifted woman to abandon her child thus at the very beginning of its life.
CHAPTER III.
THE LITTLE STRANGER ADOPTED.
The next morning there appeared an advertisement in the Boston Transcript, offering five hundred dollars to suitable parties who would adopt a female infant, and stating that applications were to be made by letter, addressed to the office of the paper.
Of course a great many answers were received, for there were hosts of people who would agree to almost anything for five hundred dollars, while there were others who were really anxious to adopt the little baby girl that was to be so strangely thrown upon the world.
One alone out of these many epistles pleased Mrs. Marston. It was written in a clear, elegant hand, signed “August and Alice Damon.”
It was from a young couple, and stated that only a month previous they had lost their own little daughter—a babe of a few weeks—and their hearts were so sore over their loss, their home so lonely and sad, that they would gladly take a little one to fill, as far as might be possible, the place of their lost darling, and if the child in question pleased them and there was nothing objectionable connected with her birth or antecedents, they would gladly adopt her without the payment of the premium that had been offered.
Mrs. Marston, after reading this communication, immediately dashed off a note asking the young people to call upon her at their earliest convenience—in case they were at liberty to do so, the next morning at ten o’clock; she would reserve that hour for them.