"Ay, ay; in a few months after the boy's birth. She was but a weakly thing at best, and she had troubles enow."
Quickly came the blood to my heart—to my cheek—in bitter, bitter shame. Not for myself, but for him. I shrank like a guilty thing before that mother's eye. I dared not ask—what I longed to hear—concerning the poor girl, and her sad history.
"Is the child like her?" was all I could say, looking to where the little one was playing, at the far end of the garden. I was glad not to see him nearer. "Was his mother as beautiful as he?"
"Ay, a good-looking lass enough; but the little lad's like his father, who was a gentleman born: though Laurence had better ha' been a plowman's son. A bad business Bess made of it. To this day I dunnot know her right name, nor little Laurence's there; and so I canna make his father own him. He ought, for the lad's growing up as grand a gentleman as himself: he'll never do to live with poor folk like granny."
"Alas!" I cried, forgetting all but my compassion; "then how will the child bear his lot of shame!"
"Shame!" and the old woman came up fiercely to me. "You'd better mind your own business: my Bess was as good as you."
I trembled violently, but could not speak. The woman went on:
"I dunnot care if I blab it all out, though Bess begged me not. She was a fool, and the young fellow something worse. His father tried—may-be he wished to try, too—but they couldna undo what had been done. My girl was safe married to him, and the little lad's a gentleman's lawful son."
Oh! joy beyond belief! Oh! bursting blessed tears! My Laurence! my Laurence!
* * * I have no clear recollection of any thing more, save that I suppose the woman thought me mad, and fled out of the cottage. My first consciousness is of finding myself quite alone, with the door open, and a child looking in at me in wonderment, but with a gentleness such as I have seen my husband wear. No marvel I had loved that childish face: it was such as might have been his when he was a boy.