The child approached with a dainty deference that won the rich woman instantly—if she had not been won from the first.
This was no laborer’s offspring.
Mrs. Theddon was almost minded to believe in fairies after all.
II
The following day a pair of handsome grays stopped before the Corpus-Christi Orphanage. Mrs. Theddon alighted from her carriage, instructed her coachman to wait and went up the broken steps to the grim front door.
The Orphanage was a mediocre double house in the poorer quarter of the city; only a battered sign tacked to the greenish clapboards indicated its character. Mrs. Theddon’s ring was answered by an angular female who believed in infant damnation, the prohibition issue and the curse of the idle rich. Her hair was drawn tightly from her square, sallow forehead, her shoulders were sharp, her face on a man would have created a perfect butler for the lower class motion pictures.
“I am Mrs. Gracia Theddon,” announced the first, “and I have called to see you about a certain child you have here—a little Allegra Something-or-other.”
“You mean you want to adopt her?”
“If it’s possible.”
“It isn’t possible! Allegra’s my own.”