“She was quiet, and her head was down, but I had one look from her eyes that haunts me yet. She hated everybody—you could see that,—and yet there was a sort of dumb helplessness about it that made my heart ache.
“She got out, obediently, when we told her to, and stood by the roadside, watching us. ‘Doctor,’ I said, ‘that child is not like the others, and she has been badly used. I want her—I want to take her home with me.’
“‘Bless your kind heart, dear lady,’ he replied, laughing, and we were almost at home before I convinced him that I was in earnest. He would not let me go there again, but the very next day, he went, late in the afternoon, and brought her to me after dark, so that no one might see. East Lancaster has always made the most of every morsel of gossip.
“The poor little soul was hungry, frightened, and oh, so dirty! I gave her a bath, cut off her hair, which was matted close to her head, fed her, and put her into a clean bed. The bruises on her body would have brought tears from a stone. I sat by her until she was asleep, and then went down to interview the Doctor, who was reading in the library.
“He said that the people who had her were more than glad to get rid of her, and hoped that they might never see her again. Nothing had been paid toward her support for a long time, and they considered themselves victimised.
“Of course I put detectives at work upon the case and soon found out all there was to know. She was the daughter of a play-actress, whose stage name was Iris Temple. Her husband deserted her a few months after their marriage, and when the child was born, she was absolutely destitute. Finally, she found work, but she could not take the child with her, and so Iris does not remember her mother at all. For six years she paid these people a small sum for the care of the child, then remittances ceased, and abuse began. We learned that she had died in a hospital, but there was no trace of the father.
“There was no one to dispute my title, so I at once made it legal. Shortly afterward, she had a long, terrible fever, and oh, Margaret, the things that poor child said in her delirium! Doctor Brinkerhoff was here night and day, and his skill saved her, but when she came out of it she was a pitiful little ghost. Mercifully, she had forgotten a great deal, but even now some of the horror comes back to her occasionally. She knows everything, except that her mother was a play-actress. I would not want her to know that.
“For a while,” Aunt Peace went on, “we both had a very hard time. She was actually depraved. But I believed in the good that was hidden in her somewhere—there is good in all of us if we can only find it,—and little by little she learned to love me. Through it all, I had Doctor Brinkerhoff’s sympathetic assistance. He came every week, advised me, counselled with me, helped me, and even faced the gossips. All that East Lancaster knows is the simple fact that I found a child who attracted me, discovered that her parents were dead, and adopted her. There was a great deal of excitement at first, but it died down. Most things die down, my dear, if we give them time.”
“Dear Aunt Peace,” said Margaret, softly, “you found a bit of human driftwood, and with your love and your patience made it into a beautiful woman.”