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uspicions. He had a real respect for the little ladies, and was kindly anxious to save them from their own indiscretion. "My dear ladies," said he, "I do hope your benevolence--may I say your romantic benevolence?--of disposition is not tempting you to adopt this gipsy waif?" "I hope we know what is due to ourselves, and to the estate--small, as it is--sir," said Miss Betty, "as well as to Providence, too well to attempt to raise any child, however handsome, from that station of life in which he was born." "Bless me, madam! I never dreamed you would adopt a beggar child as your heir; but I hope you mean to send it to the workhouse, if the gipsy tramps it belongs to are not to be found?" "We have not made up our minds, sir, as to the course we propose to pursue," said Miss Betty, with outward dignity proportioned to her inward doubts. "My dear ladies," said the lawyer anxiously, "let me implore you not to be rash. To adopt a child in the most favorable circumstances is the greatest of risks. But if your benevolence _will_ take that line, pray adopt some little boy out of one of your tenants' families. Even your teaching will not make him brilliant, as he is likely to inherit the minimum of intellectual capacity; but he will learn his catechism, probably grow up respectable, and possibly grateful, since his forefathers have (so Miss Kitty assures me) had all these virtues for generations. But this baby is the child of a heathen, barbarous, and wandering race. The propensities of the vagabonds who have deserted him are in every drop of his blood. All the parsons in the diocese won't make a Christian of him, and when (after anxieties I shudder to foresee) you flatter yourself that he is civilized, he will run away and leave his shoes and stockings behind him." "He has a soul to be saved, if he is a gipsy," said Miss Kitty, hysterically. "The soul, my dear Miss Kitty "--began the lawyer, facing round upon her. "Don't say anything dreadful about the soul, sir, I beg," said Miss Betty, firmly. And then she added in a conciliatory tone, "Won't you look at the little fellow, sir? I have no doubt his relations are shocking people; but when you see his innocent little face and his beautiful eyes, I think you'll say yourself that if he were a duke's son he couldn't be a finer child." "My experience of babies is so limited, Miss Betty," said the lawyer, "that really--if you'll excuse me--but I can quite imagine
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