ions, as I suppose, the child
was born unexpectedly at the rectory; and the ceremony of baptism was
performed at the church, under circumstances which I am not able to
relate within the limits of a letter: Let me only say that I allude to
this incident without any sectarian bitterness of feeling--for I am
no enemy to the Church of England. You have no idea what treasures of
virtue and treasures of beauty maternity has revealed in my wife's sweet
nature. Other mothers, in her proud position, might find their love
cooling toward the poor child whom we have adopted. But my household is
irradiated by the presence of an angel, who gives an equal share in her
affections to the two little ones alike."

In this semi-hysterical style of writing, the poor man unconsciously
told me how cunningly and how cruelly his wife was deceiving him.

I longed to exhibit that wicked woman in her true character--but what
could I do? She must have been so favored by circumstances as to be able
to account for her absence from home, without exciting the slightest
suspicion of the journey which she had really taken, if I declared in my
reply to the Minister's letter that I had received her in my rooms,
and if I repeated the conversation that had taken place, what would
the result be? She would find an easy refuge in positive denial of
the truth--and, in that case, which of us would her infatuated husband
believe?

The one part of the letter which I read with some satisfaction was the
end of it.

I was here informed that the Minister's plans for concealing the
parentage of his adopted daughter had proved to be entirely successful.
The members of the new domestic household believed the two children to
be infant-sisters. Neither was there any danger of the adopted child
being identified (as the oldest child of the two) by consultation of the
registers.

Before he left our town, the Minister had seen for himself that no
baptismal name had been added, after the birth of the daughter of the
murderess had been registered, and that no entry of baptism existed in
the registers kept in places of worship. He drew the inference--in
all probability a true inference, considering the characters of the
parents--that the child had never been baptized; and he performed the
ceremony privately, abstaining, for obvious reasons, from adding her
Christian name to the imperfect register of her birth. "I am not aware,"
he wrote, "whether I have, or have not, committ