Peace,--and the words were a caress,--"she
has given to me infinitely more than I have given to her. I have never
ceased to bless the day I found her."

Between these two there were no questions, save the ordinary,
meaningless ones which make so large a part of conversation. The deeps
were silently passed by; only the shallows were touched.

"You have the right to know," Miss Field continued. "Iris is twenty now,
or possibly twenty-one. She has never known when her birthday came, and
so we celebrate it on the anniversary of the day I found her.

"I was driving through the country, fifteen or twenty miles from East
Lancaster. I--I was with Doctor Brinkerhoff," she went on, unwillingly.
"He had asked me to go and see a patient of his, in whom, from what he
had told me, I had learned to take great interest. Doctor Brinkerhoff,"
she said, sturdily, "is a gentleman, though he has no social position."

"Yes," replied Margaret, seeing that an answer was expected, "he is a
charming gentleman."

"It was a warm Summer day, and on our way back we came upon a dozen or
more ragged children, playing in the road. They refused to let us pass,
and we could not run over them. A dilapidated farmhouse stood close by,
but no one was in sight.

"'Please hold the lines,' said the Doctor. 'I will get out and lead the
horse past this most unnecessary obstruction.' When he got out, the
children began to throw stones at the horse. It was a young animal, and
it started so violently that I was almost thrown from my seat. One
child, a girl of ten, climbed into the buggy and shrieked to the rest:
'I'll hold the lines--get more stones!'

"I was frightened and furiously angry, but I could do nothing, for I had
only one hand free. I tried to make the child sit down, and she struck
at me. Her torn sleeve fell back, and I saw that her arm was bruised, as
if with heavy blows.

"Meanwhile the Doctor had led the horse a little way ahead, and had come
back. The whole tribe was behind us, yelling like wild Indians, and we
were in the midst of a rain of stones. Doctor Brinkerhoff got in and
started the horse at full speed.

"'We'll put her down,' he said, 'a little farther on. She can walk
back.'

"She was quiet, and her head was down, but I had one look from her eyes
that haunts me yet. She hated everybody--you could see that,--and yet
there was a sort of dumb helplessness about it that made my heart ache.

"She got out, obediently, when we told h