“Now, mother,” she said one morning, when for the first time in months she was dressed and sitting up. “Now, you must go for baby; go to-day,—will you,—or shall I send some one else?” She spoke decidedly, and Mrs. Fordham, who felt that there was a change in her daughter, and that henceforth their relations to each other must be different from what they had heretofore been, did not oppose her, but answered, readily: “I will go myself;” and an hour later she stood again at the door of —— Street Foundling Hospital. She was a clergyman’s widow, she said, and had come to make inquiries concerning a child named Heloise, which was left there some time in January. Could they tell her anything about it? They could tell her, and they did, and with a throbbing of the heart and a relieved expression on her face, she started home, where Edith was waiting for her. “Where is it, mother?” was the question asked eagerly. “Edith, baby is dead. It only lived three weeks, they told me. It was born, it seems, with some affection of the heart, which, under any circumstances, would have ended its life in a short time, the physician said. It had every possible care, and died with little or no pain. I was particular to inquire about that, as I knew you would wish to know. There, there, my child, don’t take it so hard,” and Mrs. Fordham laid her hand on the bowed head of the sorrowing girl, who was weeping passionately. “It was wrong perhaps to take it from you, and I am sorry now did it. I thought then it was for the best, for a baby would be in our way. Forgive me, Edith, and let us bury the past forever.”