But she was shaken.

She sat very still for a quarter of an hour or more, while he leaned back, exhausted by his own feelings.
"The poor child!" said she, at length--"the poor, poor child! what it will have to struggle through and endure! Do you remember Thomas Wilkins, and the way he threw the registry of his birth and baptism back in your face?
Why, he would not have the situation; he went to sea and was drowned, rather than present the record of his shame." "I do remember it all.

It has often haunted me.

She must strengthen her child to look to God, rather than to man's opinion.

It will be the discipline, the penance, she has incurred.