owering, so mysterious and exciting, in the whole transaction.
My wife suggested that she should be called "Phebe Monday," that being
the day on which she was found; but, somehow or other, I disliked the
combination of sounds exceedingly; and at last, at the suggestion of the
nurse-mother, we affixed Fortune to her Christian designation; and,
after the ceremony, which was performed in the gardener's house, we
drank a glass of ginger wine to the health and long life of little Phebe
Fortune, the foundling. Through the kindness of Lord C----, I had the
privilege of walking when I chose in his extensive gardens and
pleasure-grounds, which were in my parish, and adjoining to the manse;
and it was on one of the smooth-rolled grass walks of this garden that I
conducted little Phebe's first steps, when she put down her little foot
for the first time, and stood almost erect on the grass. Oh, how the
little doll screamed and chuckled as she tumbled over and rolled about;
ever and anon stretching out her little hand, and asking, as it were, my
assistance in aiding her inexperience and weakness. However, "_Tentando
fimus fabri_," by effort, frequently repeated, success is at last
secured; and Phebe at last flew off from me like an arrow, and, like an
arrow, too, alighted head foremost on the soft sward. Phebe won all
hearts when she began to syllable people's names. Me she called
"minny-man;" my wife, "minny-man-minny;" and her own nurse, "mother, ma,
ma, bonny ma! guid ma!" Year rolled on after year, and little Phebe was
the talk of all the country round. People passing on the highroad
stopped and spoke to her. Phebe used often to visit the manse, and to
play with my youngest daughter, only a few months younger than herself,
whilst I have often sat in my elbow chair, called in the family "Snug,"
and said to myself, "I am sure I cannot tell which of these children I
am most attached to." All the features and properties of little Phebe
were aristocratic: beautiful feet and anckles; small, little plump
hands, and finely-tapered fingers; an eye of the purest water and the
most noble expression, beaming through a curtain of deep blue, under a
canopy of the finest auburn; a brow, nose, lips, and chin, all
exquisitely formed and proportioned. No child in the neighbourhood could
be compared with Phebe. Even my wife, prejudiced as she naturally was in
favour of her own offspring, used sometimes to say--"Our Jessie looks
well enough; but that