In the name of Heaven, I ask you, what have you done with my child ?" "I have not injured her," she sobbed.
"Is she living or dead ?" asked the earl, with terrible calmness.
"She is living," replied the weeping woman.
Lord Mountdean raised his face reverently to the summer sky.
"Thank Heaven!" he said, devoutly; and then added, turning to the woman--"Living and well ?" "No, not well; but she will be in time.

Oh, sir, forgive me! I did wrong, perhaps, but I thought I was acting for the best." "It was a strange 'best,'" he said, "to place a child beyond its parent's reach." "Oh, sir," cried Margaret Dornham, "I never thought of that! She came to me in my dead child's place--it was to me as though my own child had come back again.

You could not tell how I loved her.

Her little head lay on my breast, her little fingers caressed me, her little voice murmured sweet words to me.

She was my own child--I loved her so, sir!" and the poor woman's voice was broken with sobs.