some defect about it which made it unworthy of the pampered
child at Stokeley. Zoe saw the organist, or, at least, Mrs Gray
imagined that she did, for the cry she gave might equally well have
been intended as a greeting to a pig down in the ditch.

'Well a-never, who 'd a' thought! she see you ever so far off, bless
her! and give such a jump as pretty near took her out of my arms. Why
there! Mr Robins don't want you, Miss Saucy, no one don't want such
rubbige; a naughty, tiresome gal! as won't go to sleep, but keeps
jumping and kicking and looking about till my arm's fit to drop with
aching.'

Jane Sands was sitting at work just outside the kitchen door at the
side of the house. He had seen her there a minute ago when he filled
the watering-can at the pump, and a sudden impulse came into his mind
to show her the child.

He did not quite decide what he should say, or what he should do, when
the recognition, which he felt sure was unavoidable, followed the sight
of the child; but he just yielded to the impulse, and took the child
from Mrs Gray's arms and carried her round to the back-door. The
recognition was even more instantaneous than he had expected. As he
came round the corner of the house, with the little, white-bonneted
girl in his arms, Jane sprang up with a cry of glad surprise and
delight, such as swept away in a moment all his doubt of her loyalty to
him and his, and all his remembrance of her absorption in that little
common child at Stokeley. She made a step forward and then stood
perfectly still, and the light and gladness faded out of her face, and
her hands, that had been stretched out in delighted greeting, fell dull
and lifeless to her sides.

He said nothing, but held the child towards her; it was only natural
that she should doubt, being so unprepared, but a second glance would
convince her.

'I thought,' she said, looking the baby over, with what in a less kind,
gentle face, might have been quite a hard, critical manner, 'I thought
for a minute'----

'Well?'

'I was mistaken,' she said; 'of course I was mistaken.' And then she
added to herself more than to him, 'It is not a bit like'----

'Look again,' he said, 'look again; don't you see a likeness?'

'Likeness? Oh, I suppose it's the gypsy child up at Mrs Gray's, and
you mean the likeness to the woman who came here that day she was left;
but I don't remember enough of her to say. It's plain the child's a
gypsy. What a swarthy