412       MARY ROGERS LETTER TO EDITH.

arm. I was sure the bundle was the baby, and, when she got
back, I let myself out on to that littie balcony under your win-
dow, and waited till 1 heard her tell you where she had taken
the child. There certainly was a Providence in it that I had a
sister nurse in that very hospital, and, to make sure your mother
told you true, I got leave to go next day to see my sister.
  "By a little management, I found that a girl baby had been
left there the night before, with rlaoise pinned on its dress, as
Mrs. Fordhain said, and that it was further marked on the bos-
om with a drop of blood. I got Anne to show the baby to me
and knew it for the same I had seen in your room. You re-
member I tended it an hour or more once.
  Ad I love children, and this one interested me more than I can
tell; and I said to myself I'll keep watch of it, and the moth -r,
too, and some time maybe I can unravel the mystery and
bring them together.  From what I overheard, I believed you
had been married, and that your husband was dead, and that
was all I knew of him. But I pitied you, and loved the child,
and without telling Anne why, I made her promise to be very
kind to the little one.
  Mlother lived in Dorset Street, too, and as she was very lone-
some from week's end to week's end without us, I took the
plan to have her take the baby for ours. It was hard work to
bring her to it, and Anne opposed it, too; but something
seemed to push me on and say that it must be done, and I got
her consent, and she took Heloise to our house in No. --,
where she was just like a little sunbeam, and it was hard to tell
which loved her the most, mnother, or Anne, or me. I claimed
her for mine, and dressed her with my wages, and meant to
bring her tup above what we were, if I could. When you left
Dorset Street I lost track of you for a while, but that only made
me love baby more. Soon after you left I got another l)lace,
and a better one. I was waiting-maid to a Mrs. Westbrooke,
who lived in a very fine place. She, too, had a baby girl named
Gertrude, and, when it died suddenly of croup, I thought she
would have mourned herself to death for it.
  "About that time mother went off with cholera, and then I