"Really, you would do well on the stage!" she said--"If you were taller, you would make your fortune with that tragic manner! It is quite wasted on me, I assure you! I've told you a very simple commonplace truth--a thing that happens every day--a silly couple run away together, madly in love, and deluded by the idea that love will last--they get into trouble and have a child--naturally, as they are not married, the child is in the way, and they get rid of it--some people would have killed it, you know! Your father was quite a kind-hearted person--and his one idea was to place you where there were no other children, and where you would have a chance of being taken care of. So he brought you to Briar Farm--and he told me where he had left you before he went away and died." "Died!" echoed the girl--"My father is dead?" "So I believe,"--and Lady Blythe stifled a slight yawn--"He was always a rather reckless person--went out to paint pictures in all weathers, or to 'study effects' as he called it--how I hated his 'art' talk!--and I heard he died in Paris of influenza or pneumonia or something or other. But as I was married then, it didn't matter." Innocent's deep-set, sad eyes studied her "mother" with strange wistfulness. "Did you not love him?" she asked, pitifully. Lady Blythe laughed, lightly. "You odd girl! Of course I was quite crazy about him!--he was so handsome--and very fascinating in his way--but he could be a terrible bore, and he had a very bad temper. I was thankful when we separated. But I have made my own private enquiries about you, from time to time--I always had rather a curiosity about you, as I have had no other children. Won't you come and kiss me?" Innocent stood rigid. "I cannot!" she said. Lady Blythe flushed and bit her lips. "As you like!" she said, airily--"I don't mind!" The girl clasped her hands tightly together. "How can you ask me!" she said, in low, thrilling tones--"You who have let me grow up without any knowledge of you!--you who had no shame in leaving me here to live on the charity of a stranger!--you who never cared at all for the child you brought into the world!--can you imagine that I could care--now?" "Well, really," smiled Lady Blythe--"I'm not sure that I have asked you to care! I have simply come here to tell you that you are not entirely alone in the world, and that I, knowing myself to be your mother--(although it happened so long ago I can hardly believe I was ever such a fool!)--am willing to do something for you--especially as I have no children by my second marriage. I will, in fact, 'adopt' you!" and she laughed--a pretty, musical laugh like a chime of little silver bells. "Lord Blythe will be delighted--he's a kind old person!" Innocent looked at her gravely and steadily. "Do you mean to say that you will own me?--name me?--acknowledge me as your daughter--"