etter success: no one knew her, and she did not
even discover where she had lived. She could not bear the thought of
taking the child to the work-house, and kept her for six or eight weeks,
but she had a sickly son, a grown lad, to support, and in dread lest she
should be compelled to give her up to the parish, had applied for
counsel to the lady I have mentioned. When Mr. Drake arrived, she had
for some time been searching about in vain to find a nest for her.

Since his boys had been taken from him, and the unprized girl left
behind had grown so precious, Mr. Drake had learned to love children as
the little ones of God. He had no doubt, like many people, a dread of
children with unknown antecedents: who could tell what root of
bitterness, beyond the common inheritance, might spring up in them? But
all that was known of this one's mother was unusually favorable; and
when his friend took him to see the child, his heart yearned after her.
He took her home to Dorothy, and she had grown up such as we have seen
her, a wild, roguish, sweet, forgetful, but not disobedient child--very
dear to both the Drakes, who called her their duckling.

As we have seen, however, Mr. Drake had in his adversity grown fearful
and faint-hearted, and had begun to doubt whether he had a right to keep
her. And of course he had not, if it was to be at the expense of his
tradespeople. But he was of an impetuous nature, and would not give even
God time to do the thing that needed time to be done well. He saw a
crisis was at hand. Perhaps, however, God saw a spiritual, where he saw
a temporal crisis.

Dorothy had a small sum, saved by her mother, so invested as to bring
her about twenty pounds a year, and of the last payment she had two
pounds in hand. Her father had nothing, and quarter-day was two months
off. This was the common knowledge of their affairs at which they
arrived as they sat at breakfast on the Monday morning, after the
saddest Sunday either of them had ever spent. They had just risen from
the table, and the old woman was removing the cloth, when a knock came
to the lane-door, and she went to open it, leaving the room-door ajar,
whereby the minister caught a glimpse of a blue apron, and feeling
himself turning sick, sat down again. Lisbeth re-entered with a rather
greasy-looking note, which was of course from the butcher, and Mr.
Drake's hand trembled as he opened it. Mr. Jones wrote that he would not
have troubled him, had he not a