“Whose fault is it that she has to do this?” I retorted. “She wanted to keep her child; she would have borne the disgrace; would have come back openly with it in her arms, had you stood ready to support her and it; but you would have none of it; you wouldn’t even send her enough money to pay for her board and medical care. She couldn’t face the world, weak and sick, in disgrace, in debt, and out of work, with a helpless baby; she had to decide as she did that her child might have a good home, and she be free to support herself. And now, after it is too late, after you have neglected her, you dare to blame her for what she has done! Don’t you suppose she has suffered, and will suffer, more than you can ever know? Hasn’t she everything to bear, and alone; while you, who have gone scot-free, have the face to blame her for what you have forced her to do!” He was man enough to be ashamed, and lamely said so, and then, of course, I pitied him. He came in the evening with the money, asked for more particulars, and showed the best there was in him. In time Molly returned to her old work in U----. She had developed remarkably. Association with persons of refinement had helped her; she wanted to better herself; was full of plans for going to night-school, and for seeking worthier associates. She was hungry for news of her baby, and its adopted mother was soon better than her word, writing to her, and continuing to write every few months--letters full of his baby ways, which Molly would bring to me with all a mother’s pride in her boy, but with a cruel hunger that most mothers never know. In a year’s time Molly came to me saying that a young carpenter wanted to marry her, a good steady fellow that she liked, but that she would not marry him and not tell him about the baby; and if she told him, she feared he would cease to care for her. We agreed that there was but the one right thing to do, and though feeling sure he would turn against her, she heroically promised to do it. A few days later she came to me with a radiant face: she had told him her story; he had “been good” to her; had even said they would take the baby to rear if she could get it; but, alas! she was pledged not to seek to do this. They soon married and had babies of their own. The queer thing about the little “John Alden,” as Molly’s baby was called, is this: he had the same effect that adopted waifs have often had in childless homes--within a year or two the foster-parents had a child of their own, which naturally called out the mother’s strongest love; still she wrote Molly that the little John was as dear as ever. But after a second child came, and then reverses, Molly and I detected a change in the letters. I fancied the foster-parents would not be sorry to relinquish the care of the little fellow; but whether or not the question was ever really broached I cannot remember, if indeed I ever knew.