Part 30 (1/2)

All unconscious of this close scrutiny, Dorothy watched the little one with wondering eyes all the way until she reached the metropolis.

Her first idea was to seek a boarding place, and then she could look about her.

To her dismay, among the half score to which she walked until she could almost drop down from exhaustion, no one cared to take her and the child in; and it seemed to her, too, that they were rude in refusing her, and more than one actually shut the door in her face.

She was tired--so tired--carrying the heavy child in her arms. She had given the name Miss Brown to each instance, and at last one landlady came out bluntly and said to her:

”It would sound a deal more proper to call yourself Mrs. Brown, if you please, ma'am,” at the same time pointing to the child in her arms.

Then it dawned upon Dorothy's mind why every one had refused them shelter, even for money.

”Why shouldn't I call myself Mrs. instead of Miss Brown? One name is as good as another,” she said to herself. It was all the same to her; anything, so that she would not be separated from this poor little baby, whom she had learned to love in those short hours with all the strength of her yearning heart.

At the next boarding house, recklessly enough, Dorothy gave the name of Mrs. Brown, and she found no trouble in securing accommodations there.

”Poor child! she seems so young to be left a widow!” exclaimed the landlady, in relating to her other boarders that night that she had let room sixteen to such a pretty young woman, with the loveliest little angel of a baby that ever was born.

No one ever yet took a false position without finding himself ere long hedged in with difficulties.

And so poor Dorothy found it.

She was continually plied with questions by the rest of the boarders as to how long since her husband had died, and how long since she had taken off mourning, or if she had put on mourning at all for him, and if baby reminded her of its poor, dear, dead papa.

Dorothy's alarm at this can more readily be imagined than described. She almost felt like bursting into a flood of tears and running from the room.

It had gone so far now that she was ashamed to tell the truth; and then there was the terrible fear that if people knew it was not her very own they would take it from her; and she had learned to love it with all the fondness of her desperate, lonely heart.

And then, too, it seemed to know her and feel sorry for her.

It knew her, and would coo to her, and cry for her to take it.

She had named it, long since, little Pearl, because she had fished it from the water. But, to tell the truth, she found it a terrible responsibility on her hands.

She did not know what to do with the child.

She could not go out and leave it in the house, and she couldn't take it with her.

She had been searching for a situation the last few days, and, to her unspeakable horror, she found that no one wanted a young woman enc.u.mbered with a child.

Had she been older, she would have known better than to have a.s.sumed such a responsibility; but Dorothy was young, and had some of life's bitterest lessons yet to learn.

Dorothy had turned her face resolutely against the fortune which Doctor Bryan had left.

She quite believed, if she was not there to receive it, it would go to Kendal, her faithless lover.

She wanted him to have it. She did not care for any of it.

She had been only a working girl when Doctor Bryan sought her out and took her to his home; she could be only a working girl again.

CHAPTER XXVII.