Posey shook her head. “You know I was so little when my mother and
father died, and Madam Sharpe called me by her name from the first. I
think she wanted me to forget all I could for fear I might find some
one who would take me away from her. I know whenever I asked her what
my name was she would say she had forgotten, but I didn’t believe her
then. Lately, I have tried to remember it, but I can’t. I know my
mother’s first name was Kate, because I have her Bible, and that is the
name written in it.”
“Will thee let me see it?”
Posey at once brought the little velvet covered Bible, and the book of
child verse, now decidedly the worse for wear and age. On the fly leaf
of the Bible was primly written, “Kate, from Aunt Sarah.”
In the other book was apparently no writing, but after examining it a
moment grandmother asked, “Silence, will thee bring me a damp sponge?
If I am not mistaken a leaf has been pasted down here.”
The sponge was brought, and the page when moistened readily lifted,
proving Grandmother Sweet’s suspicion correct, and revealing to the
onlookers, written in a delicate hand,
“To Rose Shannon, on her fourth birthday, December 12th.”
“There!” Grandmother Sweet’s tone was triumphant, “now we have thy
rightful name, and thee shall be Rose to us, as thee was to thy
mother,” and she patted the curly brown head.
“But why do you suppose she pasted the leaf down instead of tearing it
out?” questioned Miss Silence.
“I think,” replied Posey, or rather Rose, “it was because the colored
picture on the other side of the leaf was a favorite of mine, and if it
was gone I would be sure to miss it.”
So it was without any purpose of her own, or a thought on the part of
any one of concealing her identity, that with the very beginning of
life under new conditions Posey Sharpe became Rose Shannon, and, or so
it seemed to her, with the old name the old life also dropped away.
Rose was delighted to possess a name that was hers by right, that
was her very own, but at first it sounded strangely unfamiliar, and
sometimes she failed to recognize it as belonging to herself; but very
soon she grew as accustomed to it as to the placid round of the Blossom
household.
In a short time Mrs. Patience made her trip to Cleveland, and made the
promised call at the Refuge. Here she found that a letter had been
received from Mrs. Hagood, full of complaints that Posey was an idle,
troublesome, ungrateful girl, who had left her for no cause whatever;
but at the same time demanding that she be sent back at once. For Mrs.
Hagood had supposed, as Rose thought, that she would return to the
Refuge. Mrs. Patience’s account, however, put the matter in a very
different light. The superintendent was deeply indignant, and as the
Blossoms had friends who were known to him, he gladly consented that
she should remain with them till a more permanent provision could be
made.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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