She had come to believe her mother capable of almost any wickedness.

Pressed to the wall she would never be if there was any way of escape, and to prevent such at thing there was nothing so desperate that she would not do it; and so Edith hesitated and feared to take the doubtful issue.
Week after week and month after month now went on without a single, occurrence that gave to Edith any new light.

Mrs.Dinneford wrought with her accomplice so effectually that she kept her wholly out of the way.
Often, in going and returning from the mission-school, Edith would linger about the neighborhood where she had once met her mother, hoping to see her come out of some one of the houses there, for she had got it into her mind that the woman called Mrs.Gray lived somewhere in this locality.
One day, in questioning a child who had come to the sewing-school as to her home and how she lived, the little girl said something about a baby that her mother said she knew must have been stolen.
"How old is the baby ?" asked Edith, hardly able to keep the tremor out of her voice.
"It's a little thing," answered the child.

"I don't know how old it is; maybe it's six months old, or maybe it's a year.

It can sit upon the floor." "Why does your mother think it has been stolen ?" "Because two bad girls have got it, and they pay a woman to take care of it.