isit
the place. But Lady Hurstmonceux steadily refused to receive him.

She never went to church. Her cherished sorrow grew morbid; her hopeless
hope became a monomania; her life narrowed down to one mournful
routine. She went nowhere but to the turnstile on the turnpike, where
she leaned upon the rotary cross, and watched the road.

Even to this day the pale, despairing, but most beautiful face of that
young watcher is remembered in that neighborhood.

Only very recently a lady who had lived in that vicinity said to me, in
speaking of this young forsaken wife--this stranger in our land:

"Yes, every day she walked slowly up that narrow path to the turnstile,
and stood leaning on the cross and gazing up the road, to watch for
him--every day, rain or shine; in all weathers and seasons; for months
and years."

CHAPTER XIX.

NOBODY'S SON.

Not blest? not saved? Who dares to doubt all well
With holy innocence? We scorn the creed
And tell thee truer than the bigots tell,--
That infants all are Jesu's lambs indeed.

--_Martin F. Tupper_.

But thou wilt burst this transient sleep,
And thou wilt wake my babe to weep;
The tenant of a frail abode,
Thy tears must flow as mine have flowed:
And thou may'st live perchance to prove
The pang of unrequited love.

--_Byron_.

Ishmael lived. Poor, thin, pale, sick; sent too soon into the world;
deprived of all that could nurture healthy infant life; fed on
uncongenial food; exposed in that bleak hut to the piercing cold of that
severe winter; tended only by a poor old maid who honestly wished his
death as the best good that could happen to him--Ishmael lived.

One day it occurred to Hannah that he was created to live. This being
so, and Hannah being a good churchwoman, she thought she would have him
baptized. He had no legal name; but that was no reason why he should not
receive a Christian one. The cruel human law discarded him as nobody's
child; the merciful Christian law claimed him as one "of the kingdom of
Heaven." The human law denied him a name; the Christian law offered him
one.

The next time the pastor in going his charitable rounds among his poor
parishioners, called at the hut, the weaver mentioned the subject and
begged him to baptize the boy then and there.

But the reverend gentleman, who was a high churchman, replied:

"I will cheerfully administer the rites of baptism to the child; but you
must bring him to the alta