at he could put his foot down with impunity. He was plainly very
much ashamed of himself for what had happened, and it was only right
that he should be, for, of course, it made all the school children
giggle, and a good many of their elders too, who should have known
better.
The boy who blew the organ declared that he turned quite red and bent
his head over the keys as if he were examining something on them, and
he was evidently nervous and upset, for he made ever so many mistakes
in the concluding parts of the service, and, to the great surprise and
to the satisfaction of the blower, cut the voluntary at the end
unusually short, ending it in an abrupt and discordant way, which, I am
sorry to say, the blower described as 'a 'owl,' though any shock that
the boy's musical taste sustained was compensated for by the feeling
that he would be at home at least ten minutes earlier than usual to tea.
Now it so happened that Mr Robins was in the vestry when the
christening party came in to give the particulars about the babies to
be entered in the register. He had come to fetch a music-book, which,
however, it appeared after all had been left at home; but the clergyman
was glad of his help in making out the story of the little Zoe who had
just been baptised.
I have spoken before of intelligent observers noticing and drawing
arguments from the entire want of likeness between Zoe and her parents;
but all the observers on this occasion whether intelligent or not, with
the exception of the officiating clergyman, were quite aware that Zoe
was not the Grays' baby, but was a foundling child picked up one night
by Gray in his garden.
Of her antecedents nothing was known, and, of course, any sensible
people would have sent her to the workhouse--every one agreed on this
point and told the Grays so; and yet, I think, half the women who were
so positive and severe on Mrs Gray's folly would have done just the
same.
We do not half of us know how kind-hearted we are till we are tried, or
perhaps it is our foolishness that we do not realise.
Gray was only a labourer with twelve shillings a week and a couple of
pounds more at harvest; and, of course, in bad weather there was no
work and no wages, which is the rule among the agricultural labourers
about Downside, as in many other parts, so did not present itself as a
grievance to Gray's mind, though, to be sure, in winter or wet seasons
it was a hard matter to get along. But it was
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