employer induced her to send me immediately to the hospital
for pauper women. One of my ankles was fractured, and the day after
my admission to the hospital you were born prematurely. In a ward of
that hospital, surrounded by strange but kind sympathetic faces, you,
my darling, opened your blue eyes, unwelcomed by a father's love,
unnoticed by your wretched mother; for I was delirious for many days,
and you were three weeks old when first I knew you were my baby. Ah,
my daughter! why did not a merciful God order us both out of the
world then, before it persecuted and bruised us so cruelly? I have
wished a thousand times that you had died before I ever recognized
you as mine!"

"Oh, mother, mother, pity me! Do not reproach me with the life I owe
to you."

Regina's features writhed, and, pressing her face closer against her
mother's knee, she sobbed unrestrainedly:

"My darling, blessings often come so thoroughly disguised that we
brand them as curses, learning later that they garner all our earthly
hopes, sometimes our heavenly; and when I look at you now, my soul
yearns over you with a love too deep for utterance. I know that you
were born to avenge your wrongs and mine, to aid by your baby fingers
in lifting the load of injustice and libel that has so long borne me
down. You are the one solitary comfort in all the wide earth, and but
for you I should have given up the struggle long ago."

Softly she stroked the silky hair and tearful cheek, and leaning back
continued:

"While I was still an inmate of the hospital, where I was known as
Minnie Merle, Peleg Peterson found me, and proclaimed himself your
father. He was partly intoxicated at the time, and was forcibly
ejected; but the excitement of that dastardly horrible charge threw
me into a relapse, and I was dangerously ill. Lying beside me on my
cot, I watched your little face, through the slow hours of
convalescence, and your tiny hands seemed to strengthen me for the
labour that beckoned me back to life. For your dear sake I must brave
the future. To one of the noble-hearted gentle Sisters of Charity who
visited the hospital and ministered like an angel of mercy to you and
me, I told enough of my history to explain my presence there, and
through her influence when I was strong enough to work, I was placed
in a position where I was permitted to keep you with me for a year. I
knew that my only safety lay in hiding for a time from my enemy, and
destroying all tr