"What name?" asked the minister; and she answered, "Her mother's; call
her for her mother!"
"Hester," said Madam Conway, turning to the clergyman, who understood
nothing from Hagar's reply.
So Hester was the name given to the child in whose veins the blood of
English noblemen was flowing; and when the ceremony was ended Hagar
bore back to her room Hester Hamilton, the child defrauded of her
birthright, and Maggie Miller, the heroine of our story.
CHAPTER III
HESTER AND MAGGIE.
"It is over now," old Hagar thought, as she laid the children upon
their pillows. "The deed is done, and by their own hands too. There is
nothing left for me now but a confession, and that I cannot make;" so
with a heavy weight upon her soul she sat down, resolving to keep her
own counsel and abide the consequence, whatever it might be.
But it wore upon her terribly,--that secret,--and though it helped
in a measure to divert her mind from dwelling too much upon her
daughter's death it haunted her continually, making her a strange,
eccentric woman whom the servants persisted in calling crazy, while
even Madam Conway failed to comprehend her. Her face, always dark,
seemed to have acquired a darker, harder look, while her eyes wore a
wild, startled expression, as if she were constantly followed by some
tormenting fear. At first Mrs. Miller objected to trusting her with
the babe; but when Madam Conway suggested that the woman who had
charge of little Theo should also take care of Maggie she fell upon
her knees and begged most piteously that the child might not be taken
from her.
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