id the poor woman in a puzzled tone, and she still
looked wistfully at the handsome visitor sitting before her. She did not
know how to express herself, and she was afraid of offending the lady
who was going to be Hetty's mother; yet she felt eager to make some
remonstrance against the injustice of the proceeding which Mrs. Rushton
spoke of as within the bounds of possibility. She believed in her heart
that a great wrong would be done if the child, having been educated and
accustomed to luxury for years, were to be carelessly thrown back into a
life of lowly poverty. However, the trouble that was in her heart could
not find its way through her lips, and she tried to think that Mrs.
Rushton spoke only in jest.

"It is altogether like a romance," that lady was saying as she folded up
the baby garment and put it away in a pretty scented satchel which she
wore at her side. "I have not met with anything so interesting for
years, and I promise myself a great deal of pleasure in the matter."

"May Hetty come to see me sometimes?" asked Mrs. Kane, humbly curtseying
her good-bye, when her visitor was seated in her pony phaeton and
gathering up the reins for flight.

"Oh, certainly, as often as you please," answered Mrs. Rushton gaily,
and touching the ponies with her whip she was soon out of sight; while
poor Mrs. Kane retreated into her cottage to have a good motherly cry
over the tiny broken shoes and the little washed-out faded frocks which
were now all that remained to her of her foster-daughter.

CHAPTER V.

A LONELY CHILD.

Mrs. Rushton having adopted Hetty, set about extracting the utmost
amount of amusement possible from the presence of the child in her home.
She soon grew anxious to get away from her brother's "unpleasantly
sensible remarks," and Isabel's gentle excuses for her conduct, which
annoyed her even more, as they always suggested motives for her actions
which were far beyond her ken, and seemed far-fetched, over-strained,
and absurd. So she took the child to London, where she introduced her
to her friends as her latest plaything.

Hetty had frocks of all the colours of the rainbow, and learned to make
saucy speeches which entertained Mrs. Rushton's visitors.

She sat beside her new mamma as she drove in her victoria in the park;
and on Mrs. Rushton's "at home" days was noticed and petted by
fashionable ladies and gentlemen, her beauty praised openly to her face,
her pretty clothes remarked upo