by the author of 
 / 
 
 Miss Toosey s Mission" an 
 

 
 ^ 
 
 v U ui 
 
ZOE. 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF Miss TQOSEY S MISSION. 
 
Olorks bg ti)c Same <3utbor. 
 
 MISS TOOSEY S MISSION, AND 
 LADDIE. 
 
 i6mo. Cloth. 50 cents. 
 
 TIP-CAT. 
 
 i6mo. Cloth. $1.00. 
 
 OUR LITTLE ANN. 
 6mo. Cloth. $1.00. 
 
 PEN. 
 
 i6mo. Cloth. $1.00. 
 
 LIL. 
 i6mo. Cloth. $1.00. 
 
 ZOE. 
 
 6mo. Cloth. 60 cents. 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 
 BOSTON. 
 
O.R, 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OP 
 
 **-, Lt- *- T-V ^rt^Ji-^L (ce^it 
 MISS TOOSEY S MISSION^IADDIE, TIP-CAT, OUR LITTLE 
 
 ANN, PEN, AND LIL. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS. 
 1890. 
 
Snfbrrsitn $rrss: 
 JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE. 
 
ZOE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 " HATH this child been already bap 
 tized, or no ? " 
 
 "No, she aint; leastwise we don t 
 know as how she ve been or no, so 
 we thought as we d best have her 
 done." 
 
 The clergyman who was taking Mr. 
 Clifford s duty at Downside for that 
 Sunday thought that this might be 
 the usual undecided way of answer 
 ing among the natives, and proceeded 
 with the service. There were two 
 
 961691 
 
6 ZOE. 
 
 71* *~* * / * r 
 
 Other ; bat>iee .also-, brought that after 
 noon, one of which was crying lus 
 tily, so that it was not easy to hear 
 what the sponsors answered ; and, 
 moreover, the officiating clergyman 
 was a young man, and the prospect 
 of holding that screaming, red-faced, 
 little object made him too nervous 
 and anxious to get done with it to 
 stop and make further inquiries. 
 
 The woman who returned this un 
 decided answer was an elderly woman, 
 with a kind, sunburnt, honest face, 
 very much heated just now, and em 
 barrassed too ; for the baby in her 
 arms prevented her getting at her 
 pocket handkerchief to wipe the per 
 spiration from her brow and pulling 
 
ZOE. 7 
 
 her bonnet on to its proper position 
 on her head. The man beside her 
 was also greatly embarrassed, and 
 kept shuffling his large hob-nailed 
 shoes together, and turning his hat 
 round and round in his fingers. I 
 think that really that hat was the 
 chief cause of his discomfort, for he 
 was so accustomed to have it on his 
 head that he could not feel quite 
 himself without it ; and, indeed, his 
 wife could hardly recognize him, as 
 she had been accustomed to see him 
 wearing it indoors and out during 
 the twenty years of their married 
 life, pushed back for meals or smok 
 ing, but always on his head, except 
 in bed ; and even there, report says, 
 
8 ZOE. 
 
 on cold winter nights, he had re 
 course to it to keep off the draught 
 from that cracked pane in the win 
 dow. His face, like his wife s, was 
 weather-beaten, and of the same broad, 
 flat type as hers, with small, surprised, 
 dazzled-looking, pale blue eyes, and 
 a tangle of grizzled light hair under 
 his chin. He was noticeable for the 
 green smock-frock he wore, a gar 
 ment which is so rapidly disappear 
 ing before the march of civilization, 
 and giving place to the ill-cut, ill- 
 made coat of shoddy cloth, which 
 is fondly thought to resemble the 
 squire s. 
 
 The christening party was com 
 pleted by a hobbledehoy lad of about 
 
ZOE. y 
 
 sixteen, who tried to cover his invin 
 cible shyness by a grin, and to keep 
 his foolish eyes from the row of farm 
 boys in the aisle, whose critical glances 
 he felt in every pore. He was so like 
 both father and mother, that there 
 was no mistaking his parentage ; but 
 when Mrs. Gray took off the shep- 
 herd s-plaid shawl in which the baby 
 was wrapped, such a little dark head 
 and swarthy face were exposed to 
 view as might have made intelligent 
 spectators (if there were any in Down 
 side church that afternoon, which I 
 doubt) reflect on the laws of heredity 
 and reversion to original types. 
 
 " Name this child ! " 
 
 The clergyman had got successfully 
 
10 ZOE. 
 
 through his business with the roaring 
 George Augustus and the whimper 
 ing Alberta Florence, and had now 
 the little, quiet, brown-faced baby in 
 his arms. Even a young and unmar 
 ried man was fain to confess that it 
 was an unusually pretty little face that 
 lay against his surplice, with a pointed 
 chin, and more eyebrows and lashes 
 than most young babies possess, and 
 with dark eyes that looked up at 
 him with a certain intelligence, , re 
 cognizable even to an unprejudiced 
 observer. 
 
 " Name this child ! " 
 
 Mrs. Gray had taken advantage of 
 this opportunity to mop her forehead 
 with her blue and white pocket hand- 
 
ZOE. 11 
 
 kerchief, and wrestle with her bon 
 net s unconquerable tendency to slip 
 off behind, and the clergyman passed 
 the question on to her husband, 
 who fixed his eye on a bluebottle 
 buzzing in one of the windows, 
 and jerked out what sounded like 
 "Joe." 
 
 " I thought it was a girl," whis 
 pered the clergyman. " Joe, did you 
 say ? " 
 
 " No, it aint that zactly. Here, 
 Liza, can t you tell the gentleman ? 
 You knows best what it be." 
 
 The next attempt sounded like 
 " Sue," and the clergyman suggested 
 Susan as the name, but that would 
 not do. 
 
12 ZOE. 
 
 \ 
 
 " Zola " seemed to him, though not 
 a reader of French novels, unsuit 
 able, and " Zero/ too, he could not 
 quite appreciate. 
 
 " Dashun ! if I can make it out, an 
 outlandish sorter name ! " said Gray, 
 with a terrible inclination to put on 
 his hat in the excitement of the mo 
 ment, only checked by a timely 
 nudge from his wife s elbow ; " here, 
 aint you got it wrote down some- 
 wheres ? Can t you show it up ? " 
 
 And after a lengthened rummage 
 in a voluminous pocket, and the pro 
 duction of several articles irrelevant 
 to the occasion, a thimble, a bit of 
 ginger, and part of a tract, Mrs. 
 Gray brought to light a piece of 
 
ZOE. 13 
 
 paper, on which was written the 
 name " Zoe." 
 
 " Zoe, I baptize thee " 
 A sudden crash on the organ- 
 pedals followed these words. Mr. 
 Robins, the organist, had, perhaps, 
 been asleep and let his foot slip on 
 to the pedals, or, perhaps, he had 
 thought there was no wind in the 
 instrument and that 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. 
 
14 ZOE. 
 
 The boy \vlio blew the organ de 
 clared 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 mis 
 takes 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 mus 
 ical taste sustained was compensated 
 for by the feeling that he would be 
 at home at least ten minutes earlier 
 than usual to tea. 
 
ZOE. 15 
 
 Now it so happened that Mr. Robins 
 was in the vestry when the christen 
 ing party came in to give the partic 
 ulars 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 
 baptized. 
 
 I have spoken before of intelligent 
 observers noticing and drawing argu 
 ments 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 
 
16 ZOE. 
 
 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, everyone 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 realize. 
 
 Gray was only a laborer with twelve 
 shillings a week and a couple of 
 pounds more at harvest, and, of course, 
 
ZOE. 17 
 
 in bad weather there was no work and 
 no wages, which is the rule among the 
 agricultural laborers 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 neighbors fare, 
 and none of them felt hardly used, for 
 Farmer Benson, what with bad sea 
 sons and cattle plague, was not much 
 better off than they were, and the men 
 knew it. 
 
 But out of these wages it was hardly 
 to be expected of the most provident 
 of people that anything could be laid 
 by for old age or a rainy day ; indeed, 
 there seemed so many rainy days in 
 2 
 
18 ZOE. 
 
 the present that it was not easy to 
 give much thought to those in the 
 future. Of course too the local provi 
 dent club had come to utter and hope 
 less grief. Is there any country place 
 where this has not been the case? 
 Gray had paid into it regularly for 
 years and had gone every Whitmon- 
 day to its dinner, his one voluntary 
 holiday during the year, on which 
 occasion he took too much beer as a 
 sort of solemn duty connected with his 
 membership. When it collapsed he 
 was too old to join another club, and 
 so was left stranded. He bore it very 
 philosophically ; indeed, I think it was 
 only on Whitmonday that he felt it at 
 all, as it seemed strange and unnatural 
 
ZOE. 19 
 
 to go to bed quite sober on that day 
 as he did on all other days of the year. 
 
 On all other occasions he was a 
 thoroughly sober man, perhaps, how 
 ever, more from necessity than choice, 
 as the beer supplied by Farmer Ben 
 son in the hayfield was of a quality on 
 which as the men said you got " no 
 forrarder " if you drank a hogshead, 
 and Gray had no money to spare from 
 the necessaries of life to spend on 
 luxury, even the luxury of getting 
 drunk. 
 
 He was in one way better off than 
 his neighbors from a worldly point of 
 view, in that he had not a large family, 
 as most of them were blessed with ; 
 for children are a blessing, a gift and 
 
20 ZOE. 
 
 heritage that coineth of the Lord, even 
 when they cluster round a cold hearth 
 and a scanty board. But Gray had 
 only two sons, the elder of whom, 
 Tom, we have seen at Zoe s christen 
 ing, and who had been at work four 
 years, having managed at twelve to 
 scramble into the fifth standard, and 
 at once left school triumphantly, and 
 now can neither read nor write, 
 having clean forgotten everything 
 drummed into his head, but earns 
 three shillings and sixpence a week 
 going along with Farmer Benson s 
 horses, from five o clock in the 
 morning till six in the evening, the 
 long w r et furrows and heavy ploughed 
 land having made havoc of his 
 
ZOE. 21 
 
 legs, as such work does with most 
 plough-boys. 
 
 The younger boy, Bill, is six years 
 younger and still at school, and having 
 been a delicate child, or as his mother 
 puts it. " enjoying bad health," is not 
 promising for farm-work ; and, being 
 fond of his book and a favorite at 
 school, his mother cherishes hopes 
 of his becoming a school-teacher in 
 days to come. 
 
 But such is the perversity of human 
 nature that though many a Downside 
 mother with a family of little steps 
 envied Mrs. Gray her compact family 
 and the small amount of washing at 
 tached to it, that ungrateful woman 
 yearned after an occupant for the old 
 
22 ZOE. 
 
 wooden cradle, and treasured up the 
 bits of baby things that had belonged 
 to Tom and Bill, and nursed up any 
 young thing that came to hand and 
 wanted care, bringing up a mother 
 less blind kitten with assiduous care 
 and patience, as if the supply of that 
 commodity was not always largely in 
 excess of the demand, and lavishing 
 more care on a sick lamb or a super 
 fluous young pig than most of the 
 neighbors* babies received. 
 
 So when one evening in May Gray 
 came in holding a bundle in his arms 
 and poked it into her lap as she sat 
 darning the holes in Tom s stockings 
 (she was not good at needlework, but 
 she managed, as she said, to* " goblify " 
 
ZOE. 23 
 
 the holes), he knew pretty well that 
 it was into no unwilling arms that he 
 gave the baby. 
 
 " And a mercy it was as the darning- 
 needle didn t run right into the little 
 angel," Mrs. Gray always said in re 
 counting the story. 
 
 lie had been down to the village 
 to fetch some tobacco, for the Grays 
 cottage was right away from the vil 
 lage, up a lane leading on to the hill 
 side, and there were no other cottages 
 near. Tom was in bed, though it was 
 not eight yet, but he was generally 
 ready for bed when he had had his 
 tea; and Bill was up on the hill, a 
 favorite resort of his, and especially 
 when it was growing dark and the 
 
24 
 
 ZOE. 
 
 great indigo sky spread over him, with 
 the glory of* the stars coming out. 
 
 " He never were like other lads," his 
 mother used to say with a mixture of 
 pride and irritation ; " always moon 
 ing about by himself on them old 
 hills." 
 
 The cottage door stood open as it 
 always did, and Mrs. Gray sat there, 
 plainly to be seen from the lane, with 
 Tom s gray stocking and her eyes and 
 the tallow candle as near together as 
 possible. She did not hear a sound, 
 though she was listening for Bill s 
 return, and even though Tom s snores 
 penetrated the numerous crevices in 
 the floor above, they were hardly 
 enough to drown other sounds. 
 
ZOE. 25 
 
 So there was no knowing when the 
 bundle was laid just inside the cottage 
 gate, not quite in the middle of the 
 brick path, but on one side against 
 the box edging-, where a clump of 
 daffodils nodded their graceful heads 
 over the dark velvet polyanthus in 
 the border. Gray nearly stepped 
 upon the bundle, having large feet 
 and the way of walking which cov 
 ers a good deal of ground to right 
 and left, a way which plough driv 
 ing teaches. 
 
 Mrs. Gray heard an exclamation. 
 
 " Dashun! " was, I think, Gray s fav 
 orite ejaculation, which I am afraid is 
 an imprecation, but of a mild order, 
 and may perhaps be allowed to pass, 
 
26 ZOE. 
 
 as expletives of some kind seem a 
 necessity to human nature. 
 
 And then Gray came in, and, as 
 1 have said, did his best to impale the 
 bundle, baby and all, on the top of his 
 wife s darning-needle. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE organist of Downside, Mr. 
 Robins, lived in a little house close 
 to the church. 
 
 Mr. Clifford the vicar was accounted 
 very lucky by the neighboring clergy 
 for having such a man, and not being 
 exposed to all the vagaries of a young 
 schoolmaster, or, perhaps still worse, 
 schoolmistress, with all the latest mus 
 ical fancies of the training colleges. 
 Neither had he to grapple with the 
 tyranny of the leading bass nor the 
 conceit and touchiness that seems in 
 separable from the tenor voice, since 
 
28 
 
 ZOE. 
 
 Mr. Robins kept a firm and sensible 
 hand on the reins, and drove that gen 
 erally unmanageable team, a village 
 choir, with the greatest discretion. 
 
 But when Mr. Clifford was compli 
 mented by his friends on the posses 
 sion of such a treasure, he accepted 
 their remarks a little doubtfully, be 
 ing sometimes inclined to think that 
 he would almost rather have had a 
 less excellent choir and have had some 
 slight voice in the matter himself. 
 
 Mr. Robins imported a certain sol 
 emnity into the musical matters of 
 Downside, which of course was very 
 desirable as far as the church services 
 were concerned ; but when it came to 
 penny-readings and village concerts, 
 
ZOE. 29 
 
 Mr. Clifford and some of the parish 
 ioners were disposed to envy the 
 pleasant ease of such festivities in 
 other parishes, where, though the 
 music was very inferior, the enjoy 
 ment of both performers and audi 
 ence was far greater. 
 
 Mr. Robins, for one thing, set his 
 face steadily against comic songs; and 
 Mr. Clifford in his inmost heart had 
 an ungratified ambition to sing a cer 
 tain song, called " The Three Little 
 Pigs," with which Mr. Wilson in the 
 next parish simply brought down the 
 house on several occasions ; though 
 Mr. Clifford felt he by no means did 
 full justice to it, especially in the 
 part where the old mother "waddled 
 
30 
 
 about, saying Urn ph! Umph! Umph! 
 while the little ones said wee! wee! * 
 To be sure Mr. Wilson suffered for 
 months after these performances from 
 outbursts of grunting among his youth 
 ful parishioners at sight of him, and 
 even at the Sunday-school one auda 
 cious boy had given vent on one 
 occasion to an " Umph ! " very true 
 indeed to nature, but not conducive 
 to good behavior in his class. But Mr. 
 Clifford did not know the after effects 
 of Mr. Wilson s vocal success. 
 
 Likewise Mr. Robins selected very 
 simple music, and yet exacted an 
 amount of practising unheard of at 
 Bilton or Stokeley, where, after one 
 or two attempts, they felt competent 
 
ZOE. 31 
 
 to face a crowded school-room, and 
 yell or growl out such choruses as 
 "The Heavens are telling" or "The 
 Hallelujah Chorus/ with a lofty in 
 difference to tune or time, and with 
 their respective schoolmasters banging 
 away at the accompaniment within a 
 bar or two of the singers, all feeling 
 quite satisfied if they finished up all 
 together on the concluding chord or 
 thereabouts, flushed and triumphant, 
 with perspiration standing on their 
 foreheads, and an expression of hon 
 est pride on their faces, as much as 
 to say, " There s for you. What do 
 you think of that ? " 
 
 If success is to be measured by 
 applause, there is no doubt these per- 
 
32 ZOE. 
 
 formances were most successful, far 
 more so than the accurately rendered 
 " Hardy Norseman " or " Men of Har- 
 lech" at Downside, in which lights 
 and shades, pianos and fortes were 
 carefully observed, and any attempt 
 on any one s part, even the tenors, 
 to distinguish themselves above the 
 others was instantly suppressed. The 
 result, from a musical point of view, 
 was no doubt satisfactory ; but the 
 applause was of a very moderate 
 character, and never accompanied by 
 those vociferous " angcores " which are 
 so truly gratifying to the soul of mus 
 ical artistes. 
 
 Mr. Robins was a middle-aged man, 
 looking older than he really was, as 
 
ZOE. 
 
 33 
 
 his hair was quite white. He had 
 some small independent means of his 
 own, which he supplemented hy his 
 small salary as organist, and by giv 
 ing a few music lessons in the neigh 
 borhood. He had been in his earlier 
 years a vicar-choral at one of the 
 cathedrals, and had come to Down 
 side twenty years ago, after the death 
 of his wife, bringing with him his 
 little girl, in whom he was entirely 
 wrapt up. 
 
 He spoilt her so persistently, and 
 his housekeeper, Mrs. Sands, was so 
 gentle and meek-spirited, that the 
 effect on a naturally self-willed child 
 can easily be imagined ; and as she 
 grew up, she became more and more 
 3 
 
34 ZOE. 
 
 uncontrollable. She was a pretty, 
 gypsy-looking girl, inheriting her 
 sweet looks from her mother and 
 her voice and musical taste from her 
 father. There was more than one 
 young farmer in the neighborhood 
 who cast admiring glances towards 
 the corner of the church near the 
 organ where the organist s pretty 
 daughter sat, and slackened the pace 
 of his horse as he passed the clipped 
 yew-hedge by the church, to catch 
 a glimpse of her in the bright little 
 patch of garden, or to hear her clear 
 sweet voice singing over her work. 
 
 But people said Mr. Eobins thought 
 no one good enough for her, and 
 though he himself had come of hum- 
 
ZOE. 35 
 
 ble parentage, and in no way re 
 garded himself nor expected to be 
 regarded as a gentleman, it was gen 
 erally understood that no suitor ex 
 cept a gentleman would be acceptable 
 for Edith. 
 
 And so it took every one by sur 
 prise, and no one more so than her 
 father, when the girl took up with 
 Martin Blake, the son of the black 
 smith in the next village, who might 
 be seen most days with a smutty face 
 and leathern apron hammering away 
 at the glowing red metal on the an 
 vil. It would have been well for him 
 if he had only been seen thus, with 
 the marks of honest toil about him ; 
 but Martin Blake was too often to 
 
36 ZOE. 
 
 be seen at the " Crown/ and often in 
 a state that any one who loved him 
 would have grieved to see ; and he was 
 always to be found at any race meet 
 ing s and steeplechases and fairs in the 
 neighborhood, and report said was by 
 no means choice in his company. 
 
 To be sure he was good-looking and 
 pleasant-mannered, and had a sort of 
 rollicking, light-hearted way with him 
 which was very attractive ; but still it 
 seemed little short of infatuation on the 
 part of Edith Robins to take up with 
 a man whose character was so well- 
 known, and who was in every way her 
 inferior in position and education. 
 
 No doubt Mr. Robins was very in 
 judicious in his treatment of her when 
 
ZOE. 37 
 
 he found out what was going on, and 
 as this was the first time in her life 
 that Edith s wishes had been crossed, 
 it was not likely that she would yield 
 without a struggle. The mere fact 
 of opposition seemed to deepen what 
 was at first merely an ordinary liking 
 into an absorbing passion. It was 
 perfectly useless to reason with her ; 
 she disbelieved all the stories to his 
 discredit, which were abundant, and 
 treated those who repeated them as 
 prejudiced and ill-natured. 
 
 It was in vain that Mr. Kobins by 
 turns entreated and commanded her 
 to give him up, her father s distress 
 or anger alike seemed indifferent to 
 her ; and when he forbade Martin to 
 
38 ZOE. 
 
 come near the place and kept her as 
 much as possible under his eye to 
 prevent meetings between them, it 
 only roused in her a more obstinate 
 determination to have her own way 
 in spite of him. She was missing 
 one morning from the little bedroom 
 which Mrs. Sands loved to keep as 
 dainty and pretty as a lady s, and 
 from the garden where the roses and 
 geraniums did such credit to her 
 care, and from her place in the little 
 church where her prayer-book still 
 lay on the desk as she had left it 
 the day before. 
 
 She had gone off with Martin Blake 
 to London, without a word of sorrow 
 or farewell to the father who had been 
 
ZOE. 39 
 
 so foolishly fond of her, or to the 
 home where her happy petted child 
 hood had passed. It nearly broke her 
 father s heart ; it made an old man of 
 him and turned his hair white, and it 
 seemed to freeze or petrify all his 
 kindliness and human sympathy. 
 
 He was a proud, reserved man, and 
 could not bear the pity that every one 
 felt for him, or endure the well-meant 
 but injudicious condolences, mixed 
 with " I told you so," and " I ve thought 
 for a long time," which the neighbors 
 were so liberal with. Even Mr. Clif 
 ford s attempts at consolation he could 
 hardly bring himself to listen to cour 
 teously, and Jane Sands tearful eyes 
 and quivering voice irritated him be- 
 
40 ZOE. 
 
 yond all endurance. If there had 
 been any one to whom he could have 
 talked unrestrainedly and let out 
 all the pent-up disappointment and 
 wounded love and tortured pride that 
 surged and boiled within him, he 
 might have got through it better, or 
 rather it might have raised him, as 
 rightly borne troubles do, above his 
 poor, little, pitiful self, and nearer to 
 God ; but this was just what he could 
 not do. 
 
 He came nearest it sometimes in 
 those long evenings of organ playing, 
 of the length of which poor little Jack 
 Davis, the blower, so bitterly com 
 plained, when the long sad notes 
 wailed and sobbed through the little 
 
ZOE. 41 
 
 church like the voice of a weary, sick 
 soul making its complaint. But even 
 so he could not tell it all to God, 
 though he had been given that power 
 of expression in music which must 
 make it easier to those so gifted to cry 
 unto the Lord. 
 
 But the music wailed itself into 
 silence, and Jack in his corner by the 
 bellows waited terror-struck at the 
 " unked " sounds and the darkening 
 church, till he ventured at last to ask : 
 " Be I to blow, Mister ? I m kinder 
 skeered like." 
 
 So the organist s trouble turned him 
 bitter and hard, and changed his love 
 for his daughter into cold resentment ; 
 he would not have her name men- 
 
42 ZOE. 
 
 tioned in his presence, and he refused 
 to open a letter she sent him a few 
 weeks after her marriage, and bid 
 Jane Sands send it back if she knew 
 the address of the person who sent it. 
 On her side, Edith was quite as 
 obstinate and resentful. She had no 
 idea of humbling herself and asking 
 pardon. She thought she had quite a 
 right to do as she liked, and she be 
 lieved her father would be too un 
 happy without her to bear the separa 
 tion long. She very soon found out 
 the mistake she had made, indeed, 
 even in the midst of her infatuation 
 about Martin Blake, I think there 
 lurked a certain distrust of him, and 
 they had not been married many weeks 
 
ZOE. 43 
 
 I might almost say days before 
 this distrust was more than realized. 
 
 His feelings towards her, too, had 
 been more flattered vanity at being 
 preferred by such a superior sort of 
 girl than any deeper feeling, and 
 vanity is not a sufficiently lasting 
 foundation for married happiness, es 
 pecially when the cold winds of poverty 
 blow on the edifice, and when the 
 superior sort of girl has not been 
 brought up to anything useful, and 
 cannot cook the dinner, or iron a shirt, 
 or keep the house tidy. 
 
 When his father, the old blacksmith 
 at Bilton, died six months after they 
 were married, Martin wished to come 
 back and take up the work there, more 
 
44 ZOE. 
 
 especially as work was hard to get in 
 London and living dear; but Edith 
 would not hear of it, and opposed it so 
 violently that she got her way, though 
 Martin afterwards maintained that this 
 decision was the ruin of him, occasion 
 ally dating his ruin six months earlier, 
 from his wedding. Perhaps he was 
 right, and he might have settled down 
 steadily in the old home and among 
 the old neighbors in spite of his fine- 
 lady wife ; but when he said so, Edith 
 was quick to remember and cast up at 
 him the stories which she had disbe 
 lieved and ignored before, to prove in 
 their constant wranglings that place 
 and neighborhood had nothing to do 
 with his idleness and unsteadiness. 
 
ZOE. 45 
 
 No one ever heard much of these five 
 years in London, for Edith wrote no 
 more after that letter was returned. 
 Those five years made little differ 
 ence at Downside, except in Mr. 
 Robins white hair and set, lined face ; 
 the little house behind the yew-hedge 
 looked just the same, and Jane Sands 
 kind, placid face was still as kind and 
 placid. Some of the girls had left 
 school and gone to service ; some of 
 the lads had developed into hobblede 
 hoys and came to church with walking- 
 sticks and well-oiled hair ; one or two 
 of the old folks had died ; one or 
 two more white-headed babies crawled 
 about the cottage floors ; but other 
 wise Downside was just the same as it 
 
46 ZOE. 
 
 had been five years before, when, one 
 June morning, a self-willed girl had 
 softly opened the door under the 
 honeysuckle porch and stepped out 
 into the dewy garden, where the birds 
 were calling such a glad good-morning 
 as she passed to join her lover in the 
 lane. 
 
 But the flame of life burns quicker 
 and fiercer in London than at Down 
 side, for that same girl, coming back 
 after only five years in London, was so 
 changed and aged and altered that 
 though, to be sure, she came in the 
 dusk and was muffled up in a big 
 shawl no one recognized her, or 
 thought for a moment of pretty, co 
 quettish, well-dressed Edith Robins, 
 
ZOE. 47 
 
 when the weary, shabby-looking 
 woman passed them by. She had 
 lingered a minute or two by the 
 churchyard gate, though tramps, for 
 such her worn-out boots and muddy 
 skirts proclaimed her, do not as a rule 
 care for such music as sounded out 
 from the church-door, where Mr. 
 Kobins was consoling himself for the 
 irritation of choir-practice by ten 
 minutes playing. It was soon over, 
 and Jack Davis, still blower, and not 
 much taller than he was five years 
 before, charged out in the rebound 
 from the tension of long blowing, and 
 nearly knocked over the woman stand 
 ing by the churchyard gate in the 
 shadow of the yew-tree, and made the 
 
48 ZOE. 
 
 baby she held in her arms give a 
 feeble cry. 
 
 " Now then, put of the way ! " he 
 shouted in that unnecessarily loud 
 voice boys assume after church, per 
 haps to try if their lungs are still 
 capable of producing such a noise 
 after enforced silence. 
 
 The woman made no answer, but 
 after the boy had run off, went in and 
 waited in the porch till the sound of 
 turning keys announced that the or 
 ganist was closing the organ and 
 church for the night. But as his foot 
 steps drew near on the stone pavement 
 she started and trembled as if she had 
 been afraid, and when he came out 
 into the porch she shrank away into 
 
ZOE. 49 
 
 the shadow as if she wished to be un 
 observed. He might easily have 
 passed her, for it was nearly dark from 
 the yew-tree and the row of elms that 
 shut out the western sky, where the 
 sunset was just dying away. His 
 mind, too, was occupied with other 
 things, and he was humming over the 
 verse of a hymn the boys had been 
 singing, " Far from my heavenly 
 home." There was no drilling into 
 them the proper rendering of the last 
 pathetic words 
 
 " O guide me through the desert here, 
 And bring me home at last." 
 
 He quite started when a hand 
 was laid upon his arm, and a voice, 
 4 
 
50 ZOE. 
 
 changed indeed and weak, but still 
 the voice that in old days not 
 so very old either was the one 
 voice for him in all the world, said, 
 "Father!" 
 
 I think just for one minute his im 
 pulse was to take her in his arms and 
 forget the ingratitude and desertion 
 and deceit, like the father in the para 
 ble whose heart went out to the poor 
 prodigal while he was yet a long way 
 off; but the next moment the cold, 
 bitter, resentful feelings quenched the 
 gentler impulse, and he drew away 
 his arm from her detaining hold, and 
 passed on along the flagged path as if 
 he were unconscious of her presence, 
 and this on the very threshold of 
 
ZOE. 51 
 
 His house who so pitifully forgives 
 the debts of His servants, forasmuch 
 as they have not to pay. 
 
 But he had not reached the church 
 yard gate before she was at his side 
 again. 
 
 " Stop/ she said ; " you must hear 
 me. It s not for my own sake, it s 
 the child. It s a little girl ; the 
 others were boys, and I didn t mind 
 so much ; if they d grown up, they 
 might have got on somehow, but 
 there ! they re safe anyhow both 
 of them in one week," wailed the 
 mother s voice, protesting against her 
 own words that she did not mind 
 about them. " But this is a girl, and 
 not a bit like him. She s like me, 
 
52 ZOE. 
 
 and you used to say I was like mother. 
 She s like mother, I in sure she is. 
 There, just look at her. It s so dark, 
 but you can see even by this light that 
 she s not like the Blakes." She was 
 fumbling to draw back the shawl from 
 the baby s head with her disengaged 
 hand, while with the other she still 
 held a grip on his arm that was almost 
 painful in its pressure ; but he stood 
 doggedly with his head turned away, 
 and gave no sign of hearing what she 
 said. 
 
 " He left me six months ago," she 
 went on, " and I ve struggled along 
 somehow. I don t want ever to see 
 him again. They say he s gone to 
 America, but I don t care. I don t 
 
ZOE. 53 
 
 mind starving myself, but it s the 
 little girl. Oh ! I ve not come to ask 
 you to take me in, though it would n t 
 be for long," and a wretched, hollow 
 cough that had interrupted her words 
 once or twice before broke in now as 
 if to confirm what she said ; " if you d 
 just take the child. She s a dear lit 
 tle thing, and not old enough at two 
 months to have learnt any harm, and 
 Jane Sands would be good to her, I 
 know she would, for the sake of old 
 times. And I 11 go away and never 
 come near to trouble you again I 11 
 promise it. Oh ! just look at her ! If 
 it was n t so dark you d see she was 
 like mother. Why, you can feel the 
 likeness if you just put your hand on 
 
54 ZOE. 
 
 her little face; often in the night I ve 
 felt it, and I never did with the boys. 
 She s very good, and she s too little 
 to fret after me, bless her ! and 
 she 11 never know anything about me, 
 and need n t even know she has a 
 father, and he s not ever likely to 
 trouble himself about her." 
 
 Her voice grew more and more 
 pleading and entreating as she went 
 on, for there was not the slightest re 
 sponse or movement in the still figure 
 before her, less movement even than 
 in the old yew-tree behind, whose 
 smaller branches, black against the 
 sky where the orange of the sunset 
 was darkening into dull crimson, 
 stirred a little in the evening air. 
 
ZOE. 55 
 
 " Oh ! you can t refuse to take her ! 
 See, I 11 carry her as far as the door so 
 that Jane can take her, and then I 11 
 go clear away, and never come near 
 her again. You 11 have her chris 
 tened, won t you ? I ve been think 
 ing all the weary way what she 
 should be called, and I thought, un 
 less you had a fancy for any other 
 name " (a little stifled sigh at the 
 thought of how dear one name used 
 to be to him), " I should like her to 
 be Zoe. Just when she was born, 
 and I was thinking, thinking of you 
 and home and everything, that song 
 of yours kept ringing in my head, 
 Maid of Athens/ and the last line 
 of every verse beginning with Zoe. 
 
56 ZOE. 
 
 I can t remember the other words, 
 but I know you said they meant 
 * My life, I love you ; and Zoe was 
 life, and I thought when I m gone 
 my little girl would live my life over 
 again, my happy old life with you, 
 and make up to you for all the 
 trouble her mother s been to you." 
 
 She stopped for want of breath and 
 for the cough that shook her from 
 head to foot, and at last he turned ; 
 but even in that dim light she could 
 see his face plainly enough to know 
 that there was no favorable answer 
 coining from those hard-set lips and 
 from those cold, steady eyes, and her 
 hand dropped from his arm even be 
 fore he spoke. 
 
ZOE. 57 
 
 " You should have thought of this 
 five years ago," he said. " I do not 
 see that I am called upon to support 
 Martin Blake s family. I must trouble 
 you to let me pass/ 
 
 She fell back against the trunk of 
 the yew-tree as if he had struck her, 
 and the movement caused the baby 
 to wake and cry, and the sound of 
 its little wailing voice followed him 
 as he walked down the path and out 
 into the road ; and he could hear it 
 still when he reached his own garden- 
 gate, where through the open door 
 the light shone out from the lamp 
 that Jane Sands was just carrying 
 into his room, where his supper was 
 spread and his arm-chair and slippers 
 awaited him. 
 
58 ZOE. 
 
 In after days, remembering that 
 evening, he fancied he had heard 
 " Father " once more mingling with 
 the baby s cry ; but he went in and 
 shut the door and drew the bolt, 
 and went into the cheerful, pleasant 
 room, leaving outside the night and 
 the child s cry and the black shadow 
 of the church and the yew-tree. 
 
 It w r as only the beginning of the 
 annoyance, he told himself; he must 
 expect a continued course of persecu 
 tion, and he listened, while he made 
 a pretence of eating his supper, for 
 the steps outside and the knock at 
 the door which would surely renew 
 the unwarrantable attempt to saddle 
 him with the charge of the child. 
 He listened, too, as he sat after sup- 
 
ZOE. 59 
 
 per, holding up the newspaper in 
 front of his unobservant eyes; and 
 he listened most of the night as he 
 tossed on his sleepless pillow lis 
 tened to the wind that had risen and 
 moaned and sobbed round the house 
 like a living thing in pain, listened to 
 the pitiless rain that followed, pelt 
 ing down on the ivy outside and on 
 the tiles above his head as if bent 
 on finding its way into the warm, 
 comfortable bed where he lay. 
 
CHAPTER 
 
 BUT the annoyance for which Mr. 
 Robins had been preparing himself 
 was not repeated ; the persecution, 
 if such had been intended, was not 
 continued. As the days passed by 
 he began to leave off listening and 
 lying awake ; he came out from his 
 house or from the church without 
 furtive glances of expectation to the 
 right and left ; he lost that constant 
 feeling of apprehension and the ne 
 cessity to nerve himself for resistance. 
 He had never been one to gossip or 
 concern himself with other people s 
 
ZOE. 61 
 
 matters, and Jane Sands had never 
 brought the news of the place to 
 amuse her master as many in her 
 place would have done, so now he 
 had no way of knowing if his daugh 
 ter s return had been known in the 
 place or what comments the neigh 
 bors passed on it. 
 
 He fancied that Jane looked a little 
 more anxious than usual ; but then 
 her sister was lying ill at Stokeley 
 and she was often there with her, so 
 that accounted for her anxiety. It 
 accounted, too, for her being away 
 one evening a fortnight later, when 
 Mr. Robins, coming in in the dusk, 
 found something laid on his doorstep. 
 His thoughts had been otherwise oc- 
 
62 ZOE. 
 
 cupied, but the moment his eyes fell 
 on the shepherd s-plaid shawl wrap 
 ping the bundle at his feet, he knew 
 what it was, and recognized a renewed 
 attempt to coerce him into doing what 
 he had vowed he would not. He saw 
 it all in a minute, and understood 
 that now Jane Sands was in the plot 
 against him, and she had devised this 
 way of putting the child in his path 
 because she was afraid to come to 
 him openly and say what she wanted. 
 Perhaps even now she was watching, 
 expecting to see him fall into the 
 trap they had set for him; but they 
 should find they were very much 
 mistaken. 
 
 His first resolution was to fetch the 
 
ZOE. 63 
 
 police constable and get him to take 
 the child right off to the workhouse, 
 but on second thoughts he altered his 
 purpose. Such a step would set all 
 the tongues in the place wagging, and 
 little as he cared for public opinion, 
 it would not be pleasant for every one 
 to be telling how he had sent his 
 grandchild to the workhouse. Grand 
 child ? pshaw ! it was Martin Blake s 
 brat. 
 
 The child was sleeping soundly, 
 everything was quiet, the dusk was 
 gathering thick and fast. Why should 
 he not put the child outside some 
 other cottage, and throw the respon 
 sibility of disposing of it on some one 
 else, and be clear of it himself alto- 
 
64 ZOE. 
 
 gether? The idea shaped itself with 
 lightning rapidity in his brain, and 
 he passed quickly in review the dif 
 ferent cottages in the place and their 
 inmates, and, in spite of his indiffer 
 ence to Martin Blake s brat, he se 
 lected one where he knew a kindly 
 reception, at any rate for the night, 
 \vould be given. He knew more about 
 the Grays than of most of the village 
 people. Bill was a favorite of his, 
 and had been with him that after 
 noon after school to fetch a book Mr. 
 Robins had promised to lend him. 
 He was a bright, intelligent boy and 
 had a sweet voice, and the organist 
 found him a more apt pupil than any 
 of the others, and had taken some 
 
ZOE. 65 
 
 pains with him, and when he was ill 
 the winter before had been to see 
 him, and so had come to know his 
 mother and her liking for anything 
 young and weak and tender. 
 
 Their cottage was at some distance, 
 to be sure, and Mr. Robins had not had 
 much to do with babies of late years 
 and was a little distrustful of his ability 
 to carry one so far without rousing it 
 and so proclaiming its presence ; but 
 there was a path across the fields but 
 little frequented, by which he could 
 convey the child without much risk 
 of being met and observed. 
 
 And now the great thing to aim at 
 was to carry out his plan as quickly as 
 possible, before any one was aware of 
 5 
 
66 ZOE. 
 
 the child being at his house, and he 
 gathered up the little warm bundle as 
 gingerly as he knew how, and was on 
 his way to the gate when the sound of 
 approaching steps along the road made 
 him draw back, and unlocking the 
 door, carry the child in. The steps 
 stopped at the gate and turned in, 
 and one of the choirmen came to 
 the door. 
 
 There were little movements and 
 soft grumblings inside the shawl in the 
 organist s arms, and he turned quite 
 cold with apprehension. 
 
 " Any one at home ? " sounded Mil 
 let s jovial voice at the open door. 
 " Evening, Mr. Robins are you 
 there? All in the dark, eh? I 
 
ZOE. G7 
 
 wanted a couple of words with you 
 about that song." 
 
 "I ll come directly," sounded the 
 organist s voice, with a curious jogging 
 effect in it, such as Millet was used to 
 sometimes in his conversations with 
 his wife at the children s bed-time. 
 And then Millet heard him go upstairs, 
 and it was some minutes before he 
 came down again, and then in such a 
 queer absent condition that if it had 
 been any other man in the parish than 
 Mr. Robins, whose sobriety was unim 
 peachable, Millet would have said that 
 he had had a drop too much. 
 
 He did not ask him in or strike a 
 light, but stood at the door answering 
 quite at haphazard, and showing such 
 
68 ZOE. 
 
 indifference on the vital question of 
 a certain song suiting Millet s voice 
 that that usually good-natured man 
 was almost offended. 
 
 " Well, I 11 wish you good-evening," 
 he said at last (it seemed to Robins 
 that he had been hours at the door) ; 
 " perhaps you 11 just think it over and 
 let me know. Hullo ! is that a cat 
 you have up there ? I thought I 
 heard something squeal out just then." 
 
 Mr. Robins was not generally given 
 to shaking hands, indeed, some of 
 the choir thought he was too much 
 stuck up to do so ; but just then he 
 seized Millet s hand and shook it quite 
 boisterously, at the same time advanc 
 ing with the apparent intention of 
 
ZOE. 69 
 
 accompanying him in a friendly man 
 ner to the gate, a movement which 
 compelled Millet to back in the same 
 direction, and cut short his farewell 
 remarks, which frequently lasted for 
 ten minutes or more. And all the 
 way to the gate Eobins was talking 
 much quicker and louder than was his 
 usual custom, and he ended by almost 
 pushing Millet out at the gate, all the 
 time expressing great pleasure at hav 
 ing seen him and pressing him to 
 come in again any evening he could 
 spare the time and have a pipe and a 
 bit of supper with him, such unheard- 
 of hospitality that Millet went home 
 quite persuaded that the old man was, 
 as he expressed it to his wife, "going 
 
70 ZOE. 
 
 off his chump ; " so that it was quite 
 a relief to meet him two days later 
 at the choir practice as formal and 
 distant in his manners as ever. 
 
 Meanwhile Mr. Robins had hastened 
 back to his bedroom where the baby 
 lay asleep on his bed, for it had been 
 really Jane Sands cat whose voice 
 Millet heard and not, as Mr. Robins 
 believed, the waking child s. 
 
 It was quite dark up there, and he 
 could only feel the warm, little heap 
 on his bed, but he struck a match to 
 look at it. The shawl had fallen 
 away, showing its little dark head 
 and round sleeping face, with one lit 
 tle fist doubled up against its cheek 
 and half-open mouth and the other 
 
ZOE. 71 
 
 arm thrown back, the tiny hand lying 
 with the little moist, creased palm 
 turned up, 
 
 " She s like mother, I m sure she 
 is." He remembered the words and 
 scanned the small sleeping face. Well, 
 perhaps there was a likeness, the eye 
 lashes and the gypsy tint of the com 
 plexion ; but just then the match went 
 out and the organist remembered there 
 was no time to be wasted in trying to 
 see likenesses in Martin Blake s brat. 
 But just as he was lifting the baby 
 cautiously from his bed, a sudden 
 thought struck him. Zoe was to be 
 her name ; well, it should be so, 
 though he had no concern in her 
 name or anything else ; so he groped 
 
72 
 
 ZOE. 
 
 about for pencil and paper and wrote 
 the name in big printing letters to 
 disguise his hand and make it as dis 
 tinct as possible, though even so, as 
 we have seen already, the name 
 caused considerable perplexity to the 
 sponsors. And then he pinned the 
 paper on to the shawl, and taking 
 the child in his arms set out across 
 the field path to the Grays cottage. 
 There was a cold air, though it was 
 a May night, but the child lay warm 
 against him, and he remembered how 
 its mother had said she could feel the 
 likeness even in the dark, and he 
 could not resist laying his cold finger 
 on the warm little cheek under the 
 shawl; and then, angry with himself 
 
ZOE. 73 
 
 for the throb that the touch sent to 
 his heart, hastened his steps, and had 
 soon reached the Grays cottage and 
 deposited his burden just inside the 
 gate, where a few minutes after Gray 
 found it. 
 
 He could see Mrs. Gray plainly as 
 she sat at her work, a pleasant, 
 motherly face ; but he did not linger 
 to look at it, but turned away and re 
 traced his steps along the field path 
 home. He found himself shivering as 
 he went ; the air seemed to have 
 grown more chilly and penetrating 
 without that warm burden against his 
 heart, and the unaccustomed weight 
 had made his arms tremble. 
 
 Somehow the house looked dull and 
 
74 ZOE. 
 
 uncomfortable, though Jane Sands had 
 come in and lighted the lamp, and was 
 laying his supper. Upstairs there was 
 a hollow on his bed where something 
 had lain, and by the side of the bed he 
 found a baby s woollen shoe, which 
 might have betrayed him to Jane if 
 she had gone upstairs. But though 
 he put it out of sight directly, he felt 
 sure that the whole matter was no 
 secret from Jane, and that she had 
 been an accomplice in the trick that 
 had been played on him, and he 
 smiled to himself at the thought of 
 how he had outwitted her, and of how 
 puzzled she must be to know what 
 had become of the baby. 
 
 He did his best to appear as tran- 
 
ZOE. 75 
 
 quil and composed as usual, as if 
 nothing had happened to disturb the 
 ordinary current of his life, and he 
 forced himself to make a few remarks 
 on indifferent subjects when she came 
 into the room. 
 
 She had evidently been crying, and 
 was altogether in a nervous and upset 
 condition. She forgot half the things 
 he wanted at supper, and her hand 
 trembled so that she nearly overturned 
 the lamp. More than once she 
 stopped and looked at him as if she 
 were nerving herself to speak, and he 
 knew quite well the .question that was 
 trembling on her lips. " Where is the 
 child? Master, where is the child?" 
 But he would not help her in any way, 
 
76 ZOE. 
 
 and he quite ignored the agitation 
 that was only too evident ; and even 
 when he went into the kitchen to 
 fetch his pipe, and found her with her 
 face buried in her arms on the kitchen 
 table, shaking with irrepressible sobs, 
 he retreated softly into the passage 
 and called to her to bring the pipe, 
 and when after a long delay she 
 brought it in, he was apparently ab 
 sorbed in his paper, and took no notice 
 of her tear-stained face and quivering 
 lips. 
 
 He heard her stirring far into the 
 night, and once she went into the 
 little room next his that used to be 
 his daughter s and which no one had 
 used since she left, and in the silence 
 
ZOE. 77 
 
 of the night again he could hear heart 
 breaking sobs half-stifled. 
 
 " Poor soul ! poor soul ! " he said to 
 himself. " She s a good creature is 
 Jane, and no doubt she s bitterly dis 
 appointed. I 11 make it up to her 
 somehow. She s a faithful, good 
 soul ! " 
 
 He was restless and uncomfortable 
 himself, and he told himself he had 
 taken cold and was a bit feverish. 
 It was feverish fancy, no doubt, that 
 made him think the hollow where 
 the child s light weight had rested 
 was still perceptible, but this fancy 
 outlasted the fever of that night and 
 the cold that caused it, for there was 
 hardly a night afterwards when Mr. 
 
78 ZOE. 
 
 Robins did not detect its presence, 
 even with all Jane Sands thorough 
 shaking of the feather-bed and care 
 ful spreading of sheets and blankets. 
 If he dropped asleep for a minute 
 that night the child was in his arms 
 again, heavy as lead, weighing him 
 down, down, down, into some un 
 fathomable gulf, or he was feeling 
 for it in the dark, and its face was 
 cold as death ; and more than once 
 he woke with a start, feeling certain 
 that a child s cry had sounded close 
 to his bed. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THERE is certainly a penalty paid 
 by people who keep entirely clear of 
 gossip, though it is not by any means 
 in proportion to the advantages they 
 gain. The penalty is that when they 
 particularly want to hear any piece of 
 news, they are not likely to hear it 
 naturally like other people, but must 
 go out of their way to make inquiries 
 and evince a curiosity which at once 
 makes them remarkable. 
 
 Now every one in the village except 
 Mr. Robins heard of the baby found 
 in the Grays garden, and discussed 
 
80 ZOE. 
 
 how it came there, hut it was only 
 by overhearing a casual word here 
 and there that the organist gathered 
 even so much as that the Grays had 
 resolved to keep the child, and were 
 not going- to send it to the work 
 house. Even Bill Gray knew the 
 organist s ways too well to trouble 
 him with the story, though he was 
 too full of it himself to give his usual 
 attention at the next choir practice, 
 and at every available pause between 
 chant and hymn his head and that 
 of the boy next him were close to 
 gether in deep discourse. 
 
 It had occurred to Mr. Robins mind, 
 in the waking moments of that rest 
 less night, that there might have been, 
 
ZOE. 81 
 
 nay, most probably was, some mark 
 on the child s clothes which would 
 lead to its identification, and for the 
 next few days, every glance in his 
 direction, or for the matter of that, 
 in any other direction, was interpreted 
 by him as having some covert allu 
 sion to this foundling grandchild of 
 his ; but the conversation of some 
 men outside his yew-hedge, which he 
 accidentally overheard one day, set 
 his anxiety at rest. 
 
 From this he gathered that it was 
 generally supposed to be a child be 
 longing to a gypsy caravan that had 
 passed through the village that day. 
 
 " And I says," said one of the men 
 with that slow, emphatic delivery in 
 
82 ZOE. 
 
 which the most ordinary sentiments 
 are given forth as if they were wis 
 dom unheard and undreamt of be 
 fore ; "and I don t mind who hears 
 me, as Gray did oughter set the per- 
 lice on to un to find the heartless 
 jade as did un." 
 
 "Ay, sure! so he did oughter; 
 but he aint no gumption, Gray 
 aint; never had neither, as have 
 known him man and boy these fifty 
 year." 
 
 " My missus says," went on the 
 first speaker, " as she seed a gypsy 
 gal with just such a brat as this on 
 her arm. She come round to par 
 son s back door my Liza s kitchen 
 gal there and telled her mother. She 
 
ZOE. 83 
 
 were one of them dressed-up baggages 
 with long earrings and a yeller hand- 
 kercher round her head, a-telling for 
 tunes ; coming round the poor, silly 
 gals with her long tongue and sly 
 ways. She went in here, too." Mr. 
 Robins guessed, though he could not 
 see, the jerk of the thumb in his direc 
 tion. " Mrs. Sands told me so her 
 self;" the organist s listening was 
 quickened to yet sharper attention 
 " she says she had quite a job to get 
 rid of her, and thought she were after 
 the spoons belike. But she says as 
 she d know the gal again anywheres, 
 and my missus says she d pretty near 
 take her davy to the child, though as 
 I says, one brat s pretty much like an- 
 
84 ZOE. 
 
 other haw, haw! though the women 
 don t think it." 
 
 And the two men parted, laughing 
 over this excellent joke. 
 
 It was most curious how that little 
 out-of-the-way house of the Grays and 
 its unremarkable inmates had suddenly 
 become conspicuous; the very cottage 
 was visible from all directions, from 
 the churchyard gate, from the organ 
 ist s garden, from various points along 
 the Stokeley road ; but perhaps this 
 may have been because Mr. Robins had 
 never cared to identify one thatched 
 roof from another hitherto. As for 
 the Grays, they seemed to be every 
 where; that man hoeing in the turnip- 
 field was Gray ; that boy at the head 
 
ZOE. 85 
 
 of the team in the big, yellow wagon 
 was Torn, and Bill seemed to be all 
 over the place, whistling along the 
 road or running round the corner, or 
 waiting to change his book at the 
 organist s gate. If Mr. Clifford spoke 
 to Mr. Kobins it was about something 
 to do with the Grays, and even Mr. 
 Wilson of Stokeley stopped him in 
 the road to ask if some people called 
 Gray lived at Downside. It was most 
 extraordinary how these people, so in 
 significant a week ago, were now 
 brought into prominence. 
 
 Even before Mr. Robins had over 
 heard that conversation he had had 
 a fidgety sort of wish to go up to the 
 Grays cottage, and now he made a 
 
86 ZOE. 
 
 pretext of asking for a book he had 
 lent Bill, but went before the school 
 came out, so that only Mrs. Gray was 
 at home as he opened the gate and 
 went up the path. 
 
 It was a beautiful, sunny afternoon, 
 and Mrs. Gray was sitting outside the 
 door, making, plain as she was, a 
 pretty picture with the shadows of the 
 young vine-leaves over the door dap 
 pling her print gown and apron and 
 the baby s little dark head and pink 
 pinafore, a garment that had once 
 been Bill s, who had been of a more 
 robust build than this baby, and more 
 over had worn the pinafore at a more 
 advanced age, so that the fit left a 
 good deal to be desired, and the color 
 
ZOE. 87 
 
 had suffered in constant visits to the 
 wash-tub, and was not so bright as it 
 had been originally. 
 
 But altogether the faded pinafore 
 and the vine-leaf shadows, and the 
 love in the woman s face, made a har 
 monious whole, and the song she was 
 singing, without a note of sweetness 
 or tune in it, did not jar on the organ 
 ist s ear, as you might have supposed, 
 knowing his critical and refined taste. 
 
 " Good afternoon, Mrs. Gray," he 
 said ; " I came for the book I lent 
 your son the other day. Why, is this 
 your baby ? " he added, with unneces 
 sarily elaborate dissimulation. " I did 
 not know you had any so young." 
 
 " Mine ? Lor bless you, no. Aint 
 
88 ZOE. 
 
 you heard? Why, I thought it was 
 all over the place. Gray, he found it 
 in the garden just there where you be 
 standing, a week ago come to-morrow. 
 Aint she a pretty dear, bless her ! and 
 takes such notice too, as is wonderful. 
 Why, she s looking at }^ou now as if 
 she d aknown you all her life. Just 
 look at her ! if she aint smiling at 
 you, a little puss! " 
 
 " Where did she come from ? " 
 " Well, sure, who s to know ? There 
 was some gypsy folks through the 
 place, and there Ve been a lot of 
 tramps about along of Milton Fair, 
 and there was one of em, they say, 
 a week or two ago with just such a 
 baby as this un. My master he Ve 
 
ZOE. 89 
 
 made a few enquirements ; but there ! 
 for my part I don t care if we don t 
 hear no more of her folks, and Gray s 
 much of the same mind, having took a 
 terrible fancy to the child. And it s 
 plain as she aint got no mother worth 
 the name, as would leave her like that, 
 and neglected, too, shameful. As there 
 aint no excuse, to my way of thinking 
 for a baby being dirty, let folks be as 
 poor as they may." 
 
 Somewhere deep down in Mr. 
 Robins mind, unacknowledged to 
 himself, there was a twinge of resent 
 ment at this reflection on the mother s 
 treatment of the baby. 
 
 " She s as sweet as a blossom now," 
 went on Mrs. Gray, tossing the baby 
 
90 ZOE. 
 
 up, who laughed and crowed and 
 stretched its arms. Yes, he could see 
 the likeness, he was sure of it ; and it 
 brought back to his mind with sudden 
 vividness a young mother s look of 
 pride and love as she held up her lit 
 tle girl for the father s admiration. 
 Mother and child had then been won 
 derfully alike, and in this baby he 
 could trace a likeness to both. 
 
 Mrs. Gray went maundering on, as 
 her manner was, interspersing her 
 narrative with baby nonsense and en 
 dearments, and Mr. Robins forgot his 
 errand, which was after all only a 
 pretext, and stood half-listening and 
 more than half back in the old days of 
 memory ; and once he so far forgot 
 
ZOE. 91 
 
 himself as to snap his fingers at the 
 child, and touch one of its warm, little 
 hands, which immediately closed round 
 his finger with a baby s soft, tenacious 
 grasp, from which it required a certain 
 gentle effort to escape. 
 
 " A pleasant, chatty sort of man the 
 organist," Mrs. Gray said, having 
 talked nearly all the time herself, with 
 only a word or two from him now and 
 then as reply ; " and not a bit of pride 
 about him, let folks say what they 
 like. Why, he stopped ever so long 
 and had a deal to say ; and there, Bill, 
 you just run down with the book, as 
 he went off after all without it." 
 
 Mr. Robins went home slowly across 
 the fields in a curiously softened frame 
 
92 ZOE. 
 
 of mind. Perhaps it was the soft west 
 wind, fragrant with sweet spring 
 scents of cowslips and cherry blossom, 
 or the full glad sunshine on all the 
 varied green of tree and hedge, a 
 thousand tints of that " shower of 
 greennesses " poured down so lavishly 
 by the Giver of all good things ; per 
 haps it was the larks springing up 
 from the clover in such an ecstasy of 
 song ; or perhaps it was the clasp of a 
 baby s hand on his finger. He noticed 
 the spring beauty round him as he 
 had not noticed such things for many 
 a day, stooping to pick a big, tasselled, 
 gold-freckled cowslip, and stopping to 
 let a newly-fledged, awkward young 
 bird hop clumsily out of the way, 
 
ZOE. 93 
 
 with a sort of tenderness and consid 
 eration for young things unusual to 
 him. 
 
 His mind was more at rest than it 
 had been for the last three weeks. 
 The baby s crowing laughter seemed 
 to drive out of his memory the wail 
 ing cry and the hollow cough and the 
 sad, beseeching- voice saying " Father," 
 and then the pitiless beating rain, 
 which had been haunting him for the 
 last three weeks. The sight of the 
 baby, loved and cared for, had taken 
 away a misgiving, which he had 
 hardly been conscious of himself. 
 After all, he had not done badly by 
 the child. Mrs. Gray was a kind, 
 motherly sort of body, and used to 
 
94 ZOE. 
 
 babies, which Jane Sands was not, and 
 she would do well by the child, and 
 he himself could see, without any one 
 being the wiser, that the child did not 
 want for anything, though he would 
 not be held responsible in any way 
 for it. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THERE was one thing that puzzled Mr. 
 Robins extremely, and this was Jane 
 Sands behavior. He was convinced 
 that she had been a party to the 
 trick that had been played off on 
 him, and she was evidently full of 
 some secret trouble and anxiety, for 
 which he could only account by at 
 tributing it to her disappointment 
 about the baby, and perhaps distrust 
 of the care that would be taken of 
 it by others. 
 
 Mr. Robins often discovered her in 
 tears, and she was constantly going 
 
96 ZOE. 
 
 out for hours at a time, having al 
 ways hitherto been almost too much 
 of a stay-at-home. He suspected that 
 these lengthened absences meant visits 
 to the Grays cottage and that baby- 
 worship that women find so delight 
 ful ; but he found out accidentally 
 that she had never been near the 
 cottage since the baby s arrival, and 
 when he made an excuse of sending 
 a book by her to Bill to get her to 
 go there, she met the boy at the 
 bottom of the lane and did not go 
 on to the cottage. 
 
 As to what he had overheard the 
 men saying about the gypsy girl, he 
 felt sure that Jane had only said this 
 to put people on the wrong scent. 
 
ZOE. 97 
 
 though, certainly, deception of any 
 sort was very unlike her. Once he 
 found her sitting up late at night at 
 work on some small frocks and pina 
 fores, and he thought that at last 
 the subject was coming to the sur 
 face, and especially as she colored 
 up and tried to hide the work when 
 he came in. 
 
 " Busy ? " he said. " You seem very 
 hard at work. Who are you working 
 
 / o 
 
 for ? " 
 
 " A baby," she stammered, " a 
 baby that my sister s taking care 
 of." 
 
 She was so red and confused that 
 he felt sure she was saving what was 
 
 ./ o 
 
 not true, but he forgave her for the 
 
 7 
 
98 ZOE. 
 
 sake of the baby for whom he firmly 
 believed the work was being done, 
 and who, to be sure, when he saw it 
 in Mrs. Gray s arms, looked badly in 
 want of clothes more fitted to its size 
 than Bill s old pinafores. 
 
 He stood for a minute fingering 
 the pink, spotted print of infantile 
 simplicity of pattern, and listening to 
 the quick click, click, of her needle 
 as it flew in and out ; but it was not 
 till he had turned away and was half 
 out of the kitchen that she began a 
 request that had been on the tip of 
 her tongue all the time, but which 
 she had not ventured to bring out 
 while he stood at the table. 
 
 " I was going to ask, if you d no 
 
ZOE. 99 
 
 objection, seeing that they re no good 
 to any one " 
 
 Now it was coming out, and he 
 turned with an encouraging smile. 
 
 " Well, what is it ? " 
 
 " There are some old baby-clothes 
 put away in a drawer upstairs. 
 They re rough dried, and I ve kept 
 an eye on them, and took them out 
 now and then to see as the moth 
 didn t get in them " 
 
 u Yes ? " 
 
 " Well, sir, this baby that I ? rn work 
 ing for is terrible short of clothes, and 
 I thought I might take a few of them 
 f or her" 
 
 She did not look at him once as 
 she spoke, or she might have been 
 
100 ZOE. 
 
 encouraged by the look on his face, 
 which softened into a very benignant, 
 kindly expression. 
 
 " To be sure ! to be sure ! " he 
 said. " 1 ve no objection to your 
 taking some of them for the baby 
 at your sister s." He spoke the last 
 words with some meaning, and she 
 looked quickly up at him and dropped 
 her work as if tumultuous words were 
 pressing to be spoken, but stopped 
 them with an effort and went on with 
 her work, only with heightened color 
 and trembling fingers. 
 
 o o 
 
 She was not slow to avail herself 
 of his permission, for that very night 
 before she went to bed he heard her 
 in the next room turning out the 
 
ZOE. 101 
 
 drawer where the old 
 had been stored away :: eve J f ,3hie J it-: 
 tie Edith had discarded them for 
 clothes of a larger size. And next 
 morning she was up betimes, starch 
 ing and ironing and goffering dainty 
 little frills with such a look of love 
 and satisfaction on her face, that he 
 had not the heart to hint that she 
 had availed herself somewhat liber 
 ally of his permission, and that less 
 dainty care and crispness might do 
 equally well for the baby, bundled 
 up in Mrs. Gray s kind but crump 
 ling arms, to take the place of Bill s 
 faded pinafore. 
 
 That afternoon he purposely took 
 his way home over the hillside and 
 
102 ZOE. 
 
 down- the lane by the Grays cottage, 
 witlt\a.,epn,v.ictioi i that he should see 
 the baby tricked out in some of those 
 frilled and tucked little garments over 
 which Jane Sands had lavished so much 
 time and attention that morning. But 
 to his surprise he saw her in much the 
 same costume as before, only the pina 
 fore this time was washed-out laven 
 der instead of pink, and as she was in 
 Bill s arms, and he, as the youngest 
 of the family, being inexperienced in 
 nursing, a more crumpled effect was 
 produced than his mother had done. 
 He could only conclude that Jane 
 had not found time yet to take the 
 things, or that Mrs. Gray was reserv 
 ing them for a more showy occasion. 
 
ZOE. 103 
 
 But he found Jane just returning 
 as he came up to his house, and she 
 looked far more hot and dusty than 
 the short walk up the lane to the 
 Grays accounted for, but with a beam 
 ing look on her kind face that had 
 not been there for many a day. 
 
 " Well," he said, " Jane, have you 
 been to Stokeley ? " 
 
 "Yes," she said; " and I took the 
 things you were good enough to say 
 the baby might have. They were 
 pleased." 
 
 She, too, spoke with a curious 
 meaning in her voice and manner 
 which somehow faded when she saw 
 the want of response in his face. In 
 deed there was a very distinct feel- 
 
104 ZOE. 
 
 ing of disappointment and irritation 
 in his feelings. For after all those 
 clothes had actually gone to some 
 other baby. Well ! well ! it is a self 
 ish world after all, and each of us 
 has his own interests which take him 
 up and engross him. No doubt this 
 little common child at Stokeley was 
 all in all to Jane Sands, and she was 
 glad enough of a chance to pick all 
 the best out of those baby-clothes up 
 stairs that he remembered his young 
 wife preparing so lovingly for her 
 baby and his. It gave him quite a 
 pang to think of some little Sands 
 or Jenkins adorned with these tucks 
 he had seen run so carefully and 
 frills sewn so daintily. He had evi- 
 
ZOE. 105 
 
 dently given Jane credit for a great 
 deal more unselfishness and devotion 
 to him and his than she really felt, 
 for she had all the time been busy 
 working and providing for her own 
 people when he had thought she was 
 full of consideration for Edith s child. 
 Pshaw ! he had to pull himself to 
 gether and take himself to task; for 
 even in these few days he had grown 
 to think of that little brown-faced, 
 dark-eyed baby as his grandchild, in 
 stead of Martin Blake s brat. Insen 
 sibly and naturally, too, the child had 
 brought back the memory of its mother, 
 first as baby, then as sweet and win 
 some little child; then as bright, wil 
 ful, coaxing girl, and, lastly, unless he 
 
106 ZOE. 
 
 kept his thoughts well in check, there 
 followed on these brighter memories 
 the shadow of a white, worn woman 
 under the yew-tree in the churchyard, 
 and of a voice that said " Father." 
 
 That uninteresting child at Stokeley 
 apparently required a great supply of 
 clothes, for Jane Sands was hard at 
 work again that evening, and when 
 he came in from the choir practice, 
 he heard her singing over her work 
 as she used to do in old days, and 
 when he went in for his pipe she 
 looked up with a smile that seemed 
 to expect a sympathetic response, and 
 made no effort to conceal the work as 
 she had done the day before. 
 
 He stood morosely by the fireplace 
 
XOE. 107 
 
 for a minute, shaking the ashes out of 
 his pipe. 
 
 " You re very much taken up with 
 that baby," he said crossly ; and she 
 looked up quickly, thinking that per 
 haps he had a hole in his stocking or 
 a button off his shirt to complain of, 
 as a consequence of her being en 
 grossed in other work. But he went 
 on without looking at her, and appar 
 ently deeply absorbed in getting an 
 obstinate bit of ash out of the pipe 
 bowl. 
 
 " There s a child at Mrs. Gray s 
 they say is very short of clothes. 
 That baby, you know " 
 
 " That baby that was found in the 
 garden/ Jane said, in such a curiously 
 
108 ZOE. 
 
 uninterested tone of voice that he 
 could not resist glancing round at her ; 
 but she was just then engaged in that 
 mysterious process of " stroking the 
 gathers," which the intelligent femi 
 nine reader will understand requires a 
 certain attention. If this indifference 
 were assumed, Jane Sands was a much 
 better actor and a more deceptive char 
 acter than he had believed possible ; 
 if she were too entirely absorbed in 
 her own people to give even a thought 
 to her young mistress s baby, she was 
 not the Jane Sands he thought he had 
 known for the last twenty years. The 
 only alternative was that she knew 
 nothing about the baby having been 
 left on his door-step, nor of the meet- 
 
ZOE. 109 
 
 ing with his daughter in the church 
 yard which had preceded it. 
 
 What followed convinced him that 
 this was the case, though it also a lit 
 tle favored the other hypothesis of her 
 selfish absorption in her own people. 
 
 "Perhaps," he said, "you could 
 look out some of those baby things 
 upstairs if there are any left." 
 
 " What ? I beg your pardon, sir. 
 What did you say ? " 
 
 " Those baby -clothes upstairs that 
 you gave to your sister s baby." 
 
 " Those ! " she said, with a strange 
 light of indignation in her eyes, more 
 even than you would have expected 
 in the most grasping and greedy per 
 son on a proposal that something 
 
HO . ZOE. 
 
 should be snatched from her hungry 
 maw and given to another. " Those ! 
 Little Miss Edith s things! that her 
 own mother made and that I ve kept 
 so careful all these years in case Miss 
 Edith s own should need them ! " 
 
 You see she forgot in the excite 
 ment of the moment that these were 
 the very things she had been giving 
 away so freely to that common little 
 child at Stokeley; but women are so 
 inconsistent. 
 
 "Well?" he said, as her breath 
 failed her in this unusual torrent of 
 remonstrance. " Why not ? " 
 
 " For a little gypsy child ! a found 
 ling that nobody knows anything 
 about! Don t do it, master, don t! 
 
ZOE. Ill 
 
 I could n t abear to see it. Here, let 
 me get a bit of print and flannel and 
 run together a few things for the 
 child. I d rather do it a hundred 
 times than that those things should be 
 given away, and just now too ! " 
 
 It was very plain to Mr. Robins 
 that she did not know; but all the 
 same he was half inclined to point out 
 that it was not a much more outrage 
 ous thing to bestow these cherished 
 garments on a foundling than on her 
 sister s baby ; but she was evidently so 
 unconscious of her inconsistency in 
 the matter that he did not know how 
 to suggest it to her. 
 
 " I m going into Stokeley to 
 morrow," she went on, " and if you 
 
112 ZOE. 
 
 liked I could get some print and make 
 it a few frocks. I saw some very neat 
 at fourpence three-farthings that would 
 wash beautiful, and a good stout flan 
 nel at elevenpence. Oh ! not like 
 that," she said, as he laid a finger on 
 some soft Saxony flannel with a pink 
 edge which lay on the table ; " some 
 thing more serviceable for a poor 
 person s child." 
 
 Well, perhaps it was better that 
 Jane should not know who the baby 
 was of whom she spoke so contemptu 
 ously. A baby was none the better or 
 healthier for being dressed up in frills 
 and lace ; and Mrs. Gray was a 
 thoroughly clean, motherly woman, 
 and would do well by the child. 
 
ZOE. 113 
 
 All the same, when Jane came back 
 from Stokeley next day and unfolded 
 the parcel she had brought from the 
 draper s there, he could not help feel 
 ing that that somewhat dingy laven 
 der, though it might wash like a rag, 
 was, to say the least, uninteresting, 
 and the texture of the flannel, even to 
 his uncliscriminating eye, was a trifle 
 rough and coarse for baby limbs. 
 
 He knew nothing (how should he ? ) 
 of the cut and make of baby-clothes, 
 but somehow, these, under Jane s 
 scissors and needle, did not take such 
 attractive proportions as those she had 
 prepared for the other baby; nor did 
 the stitches appear so careful and 
 minute, though Jane s worst enemy, if 
 
 8 
 
114 ZOE. 
 
 she had any, could not have accused 
 her of putting bad work even into the 
 hem of a duster, let alone a baby s 
 frock. He also noticed that, industri 
 ously as she worked at the lavender 
 print, her ardor was not sufficient to 
 last beyond bedtime, and that when 
 the clock struck ten, her work was 
 put away without any apparent re 
 luctance, even when, to all appear 
 ances, it was so near completion that 
 any one would have given the requis 
 ite ten minutes just from the mere 
 lust of finishing. 
 
 That Sunday afternoon when the 
 curious name Zoe, sounding across the 
 church in the strange clergyman s 
 voice, startled the organist, who had 
 
ZOE. 115 
 
 not expected the christening to take 
 place that day, one of the distracting 
 thoughts which made him make so 
 many mistakes in the music was won 
 dering what Jane Sands would think 
 of the name, and whether it would 
 rouse any suspicion in her mind and 
 enlighten her a little as to who the 
 baby at Mrs. Gray s really was. The 
 name was full of memories and associ 
 ations to him ; surely it must be also a 
 little to Jane Sands. 
 
 But of all Sunday afternoons in the 
 year, she had chosen this to go over 
 to Stokeley church. Why, parson and 
 clerk were hardly more regular in 
 their attendance than Jane Sands as a 
 rule ; it was almost an unheard-of 
 
116 ZOE. 
 
 thing for her seat to be empty. But 
 to-day it was so, and the row of little 
 boys whom her gentle presence gener 
 ally awed into tolerable behavior in- 
 
 / 
 
 dulged unchecked in all the ingenious 
 naughtiness that infant mind and 
 body are capable of in church. 
 
 She came in rather late with his 
 tea, apologizing for having kept him 
 waiting. 
 
 "It was christening Sunday," she 
 said, and then she looked at him 
 rather wistfully. 
 
 Perhaps she has heard, he thought ; 
 perhaps the neighbors have told her 
 the name, and she is beginning to 
 guess. 
 
 " And the baby has been called - 
 
ZOE. 117 
 
 she hesitated and glanced timidly at 
 him. 
 
 " Well ? " he said encouragingly? 
 " what is the name ? " 
 
 "Edith/* she answered, "was one 
 name. 
 
 Pshaw ! it was the baby at her 
 sister s she was talking of all the time ! 
 He turned irritably away. 
 
 " He can t bear to hear the name, 
 even now ; or, perhaps, he s cross at 
 being kept waiting for tea," thought 
 Jane Sands. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 As spring glided into summer, and 
 June s long, bright, hay-scented days 
 passed by, followed by July, with its 
 hot sun pouring down on the ripen 
 ing wheat and shaven hay fields, and 
 on the trees, which had settled down 
 into the monotonous green of sum 
 mer, the little, brown-faced baby at 
 the Grays throve and flourished, and 
 entwined itself round the hearts of the 
 kindly people in whose care Provi 
 dence, by the hands of the organist, 
 had placed it. It grew close to them 
 like the branches of the Virginia 
 
ZOE. 119 
 
 creeper against a battered, ugly, old 
 wall, putting out those dainty little 
 hands and fingers that cling so close 
 not even the roughest wind or driv 
 ing rain can tear them apart. Gray, 
 coming in dirty and tired in the eve 
 ning, after a long day s work in the 
 hayfield or carting manure, was never 
 too tired, nor for the matter of that 
 too dirty, to take the baby, and let 
 it dab its fat hands on his face, or claw 
 at his grizzled whiskers, or slobber 
 open-mouthed kisses on his cheeks. 
 
 Tom who had bought a blue tie 
 and begun taking Mary Jane, dairy 
 maid at the farm, out walking on a 
 Sunday evening, for at the age of 
 sixteen, and on three-and-sixpence a 
 
120 
 
 ZOE. 
 
 week, it is natural and usual to think 
 of matrimony - - Tom, I say, let Zoe 
 keep him from his siren and scrabble 
 at that vivid neckjtie, and pull the bit 
 of southernwood out of his button 
 hole and rumple his well-oiled locks 
 out of all symmetry ; while Bill ex 
 pended boundless ingenuity and time 
 in cutting whistles and fashioning 
 whirligigs, which were summarily dis 
 posed of directly they got into the 
 baby s hands. 
 
 As for Mrs. Gray, it is unnecessary 
 to say that she was the most complete 
 slave of all Zoe s abject subjects, and 
 the neighbors all agreed that she was 
 downright silly like over that little, 
 brown-faced brat as was no better 
 
ZOE. 121 
 
 no, nor nothing to hold a candle to 
 my Johnnie, or Dolly, or Bobby, as 
 the case might be. 
 
 An unprejudiced observer might 
 have thought that Mrs. Gray had 
 some reason for her high opinion of 
 Zoe, for she was certainly a very 
 much prettier baby than the majority 
 in Downside, who were generally of 
 the dumpling type, with two currants 
 for eyes. And she was also a very 
 good baby. " And easy enough too 
 for any one to be good ! " would be 
 the comment of any listening Down 
 side mother, " when they always gets 
 their own way ; " which, however, 
 is not so obvious a truth as regards 
 babies under a year as it is of older 
 
122 ZOE. 
 
 people. Certainly to be put to bed 
 awake and smiling at seven o clock, 
 and thereupon to go to sleep and 
 sleep soundly till seven o clock next 
 morning, shows an amount of virtue 
 in a baby which is unhappily rare, 
 though captious readers may attri 
 bute it rather to good health and 
 digestion, which may also be cred 
 ited, perhaps, with much virtue in 
 older people. 
 
 "And I do say," Mrs. Gray was 
 never tired of repeating to any one 
 who had patience to listen, " as noth 
 ing would n t upset that blessed little 
 angel, as it makes me quite uneasy 
 thinking as how she s too good to live, 
 as is only natural to mortal babies to 
 
ZOE. 123 
 
 have the tantrums now and then, if 
 it s only from stomach-ache." 
 
 The only person who seemed to 
 sympathize in the Grays admiration 
 for the baby was the organist. It 
 was really wonderful, Mrs. Gray said, 
 the fancy he had taken to the child. 
 " Ay, and the child to him, too, 
 perking up and looking quite peart 
 like, as soon as ever his step come 
 along the path." The wonder was 
 mostly in the baby taking to him, 
 in Mrs. Gray s opinion, as there was 
 nothing to be surprised at in any one 
 taking to the baby ; but " he, with 
 no chick nor child of his own, and 
 with that quiet kind of way with 
 him as aint general what children 
 
124 XOE. 
 
 like, though don t never go for to 
 tell me as Mr. Robins is proud and 
 stuck up, as I knows better." 
 
 There was a sort of fascination about 
 the child to the organist, and when 
 he found that no one seemed to have 
 the slightest suspicion as to who the 
 baby really was, or why he should be 
 interested in it, he gave way more 
 and more to the inclination to go to 
 the Grays cottage, and watch the lit 
 tle thing, and trace the likeness that 
 seemed every day to grow more and 
 more strong to his dead wife and to 
 her baby girl. 
 
 Perhaps any one sharper and less 
 simple than Mrs. Gray might have 
 grown suspicious of some other reason 
 
ZOE. 125 
 
 than pure, disinterested admiration for 
 little Zoe as the cause which brought 
 the organist so often to her house ; 
 and perhaps if the cottage had stood 
 in the village street, it might have 
 occasioned remarks among the neigh 
 bors ; but he had always, of late 
 years, been so reserved and solitary 
 a man that no notice was taken of 
 his coinings and goings, and if his 
 way took him frequently over the 
 hillside and down the lane w r hy ! 
 it was a very nice walk, and there 
 was nothing to be surprised at. 
 
 The only person who might have 
 noticed where he went, and how long 
 he sometimes lingered, was Jane Sands, 
 and I cannot help thinking that in old 
 
126 ZOE. 
 
 days she would have done so ; but 
 then, as we have seen, she was not 
 quite the same Jane Sands she used 
 to be, or at any rate not quite what 
 we used to fancy her, devoted above 
 all things to her master and his in 
 terests, but much absorbed in her 
 own matters and in those Stokeley 
 friends of hers. She had asked for a 
 rise in her wages, too, which Mr. 
 Robins assented to, but without that 
 cordiality he might have done a few 
 months before; and he strongly sus 
 pected that when quarter-day came 
 the wages went the same w r ay as 
 those baby-clothes, for there was cer 
 tainly no outlay on her own attire, 
 which, though always scrupulously 
 
ZOE. 127 
 
 neat, seemed to him more plain and 
 a shade more shabby than it used 
 to be. 
 
 As the summer waxed and waned, 
 the love for little Zoe grew and 
 strengthened in the organist s heart. 
 It seemed a kind of possession, as if 
 a spell had been cast on him ; in old 
 times it might have been set down 
 to witchcraft ; and, indeed, it seemed 
 something of the sort to himself, as if 
 a power he could not resist compelled 
 him to seek out the child, to think 
 of it, to dream of it, to have it so 
 constantly in his mind and thoughts 
 that from there it found its way into 
 his heart. To us who know his 
 secret, it may be explained as the tie 
 
128 ZOE. 
 
 of blood, the drawing of a man, in 
 spite of himself, towards his own kith 
 and kin. Blood is thicker than water, 
 and the organist could not reject this 
 baby grandchild from his natural feel 
 ings, though he might from his house. 
 And beyond and above this explana 
 tion, we may account for it, as we 
 may for most otherwise unaccount 
 able things, as being the leading of 
 a wise Providence working out a 
 divine purpose. 
 
 Perhaps the punishment that was to 
 come to the organist by the hands of 
 little Zoe those faf, dimpled, brown 
 hands, that flourished about in the air 
 so joyously when he whistled a tune 
 to her began from the very first, 
 
ZOE. 129 
 
 for it was impossible to think of the 
 child without thinking of the mother, 
 for to look at Zoe without seeing the 
 likeness that his fond fancy made far 
 plainer than it really was; and to 
 think of the mother and to see her 
 likeness was to remember that meet 
 ing in the churchyard and the sad, 
 pleading voice and hollow cough, and 
 the cold denial he had given, and the 
 beating rain and howling wind of that 
 
 O o 
 
 dreary night. He grew by degrees 
 to excuse himself to himself and to 
 plead that he was taken unawares, 
 and that, if she had not taken his 
 answer as final, but had followed him 
 to the house, he should certainly have 
 relented. 
 
130 ZOE. 
 
 And then he went a step further. 
 I think it was one July day, when the 
 baby had been more than usually gra 
 cious to him, and he had ventured, in 
 Mrs. Gray s absence, to lift her out of 
 the cradle and carry her down the 
 garden path, finding her a heavier 
 weight than when he had first taken 
 her to the Grays cottage. She had 
 clapped her hands at a great, velvet- 
 bodied humble bee, she had nestled 
 her curly head into his neck, and with 
 the feeling of her soft breath on his 
 cheek he had said to himself: " If 
 Edith were to cotne back now I would 
 forgive her for the baby s sake, for 
 Zoe s sake." He forgot that he had 
 need to be forgiven too. " She will 
 
ZOE. 131 
 
 come back/ he told himself, " she will 
 come back to see the child. She 
 could not be content to hear nothing 
 more of her baby and never to see 
 her, in spite of what she said. And 
 when she comes it shall be different, 
 for Zoe s sake." 
 
 He wondered if Jane Sands knew 
 where Edith was, or ever heard from 
 her. He sometimes fancied that she 
 did, and yet, if she knew nothing of 
 the baby, it was hardly likely that she 
 had any correspondence with the 
 mother. He was puzzled, and more 
 than once he felt inclined to let 
 her into the secret, or at least drop 
 some hint that might lead to its 
 discovery. 
 
132 ZOE. 
 
 It pleased him to imagine her de 
 light over Edith s child, her pride in 
 and devotion to it ; she would never 
 rest till she had it under her care, and 
 ousted Mrs. Gray from all share in lit 
 tle Zoe. And yet, whenever he had 
 got so far in his inclination to tell 
 Jane, some proof of her absorption in 
 that baby at Stokeley, for whom he 
 had a sort of jealous dislike, threw 
 him back upon himself and made him 
 doubt her affection for her young mis 
 tress and resolve to keep the secret to 
 himself, at any rate for the present. 
 
 He came the nearest telling her one 
 day in August, when, as he was water 
 ing his flowers in the evening, Mrs. 
 Gray passed the gate with that very 
 
ZOE. 133 
 
 little Zoe, who was so constantly in 
 his thoughts. 
 
 She had a little white sun bonnet 
 on, which Jane Sands had actually be 
 stowed upon her, rather grudgingly, 
 it is true, and only because there was 
 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 i 
 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 
 
134 ZOE. 
 
 Saucy, no one don t want such rub- 
 biclge ; 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 sud 
 den 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 
 
ZOE. 135 
 
 Mrs. Gray s arms and carried her 
 round to the back door. The recog 
 nition 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. 
 
136 ZOE. 
 
 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 
 
ZOE. 137 
 
 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 skin, to be sure ! " 
 
 Why, where were her eyes ? To 
 Mr. Robins it was little Edith over 
 again. He wondered that all the vil 
 lage did not see it and cry out on him. 
 
 Bat it was not likely that after this 
 his confidence should go further, and 
 just then the child began a little 
 grumble, and he took her back hastily 
 to Mrs. Gray with a disappointed, 
 crest-fallen feeling. 
 
 Jane Sands was conscious that her 
 reception of the baby had not been 
 
138 ZOE. 
 
 satisfactory, and she tried to make 
 amends by little complimentary re 
 marks, which annoyed him more than 
 her indifference. 
 
 " A fine, strong child, and does Mrs. 
 Gray great credit." 
 
 " It s a nice, bright little thing, and 
 I dare say will improve as it grows 
 older." 
 
 She could not imagine why the or 
 ganist grunted in such a surly way in 
 reply to these remarks, for what on 
 earth could it matter to him what any 
 one thought of a foundling, gypsy 
 child? 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 IT was near the end of September 
 that John Gray broke his leg. They 
 were thrashing out a wheat-rick at 
 Farmer Benson s, and somehow he 
 tumbled from the top of the rick and 
 fell with his leg bent under him, and 
 found that he could not stand when 
 he tried to struggle up to his feet. 
 
 They ran to tell " his missus/ who 
 came straight off from the wash tub 
 with the soapsuds still about her 
 skinny, red elbows, catching up Zoe 
 from the cradle as she passed, at 
 sight of whom Gray, in spite of the 
 
140 ZOE. 
 
 pain and the deadly faintness that 
 was dimming his eyes and clutching 
 his breath, made an effort to chirrup 
 and snap his fingers at the little 
 one. 
 
 " It s his innerds as is hurted," 
 explained one of the bystanders, with 
 that wonderful openness and way of 
 making the worst of everything that 
 is found in that class. 
 
 " The spine of his back most like," 
 said another, " like poor Johnson over 
 to Stokeley, as never walked another 
 step arter his fall." 
 
 " Ay, he do look mortal bad ! Tis 
 a terrible bad job ! " 
 
 u Cut off like a flower ! " sighed one 
 of the women. " There, bear up, my 
 
ZOE. 141 
 
 dear, 5 to Mrs. Gray, with whom she 
 had not been on speaking terms for 
 some weeks, owing to a few words 
 about her cat s thieving propensities. 
 " Don t ee take on ! I knows well 
 enough what you feels, as is only 
 three weeks since Father was took 
 with his fit." 
 
 " Don t be skeered, old gal," sounded 
 Gray s voice, odd and unnatural to the 
 ears of the hearers, and far away and 
 independent to himself, " I aint so 
 bad as that comes to " 
 
 And then mercifully he became un 
 conscious, for to go six miles with a 
 broken leg in a cart without springs 
 on the way to the hospital is not a 
 joke, and the neighbors kindly at- 
 
142 ZOE. 
 
 tempts to bring him round were hap 
 pily unsuccessful. The worst part of 
 that drive fell to the share of his 
 wife, who sat holding his head on 
 her lap as they jolted along, trying 
 to keep the jars and bumps from 
 jerking his leg, though all the time 
 she firmly believed he was dead, and 
 was already in her dulled mind mak 
 ing pitiful little arrangements about 
 mourning and the funeral, and con 
 templating, with dreary equanimity, 
 a widowed existence with three-and- 
 sixpence a week for her and Tom and 
 Bill and Zoe to live upon. She never 
 left Zoe out of the calculation, even 
 when it became most difficult to ad 
 just the number of mouths to be fed 
 
ZOE. 143 
 
 with the amount of food to be put 
 into them, and over this dark future 
 fell the darker shadow of the work 
 house, which closes the vista of life 
 to most of the poor. No wonder 
 they live entirely in the present, and 
 shut their eyes persistently to the 
 future ! 
 
 There was not much going back 
 into the past when she was a girl 
 and the " master a lad, and they 
 went courting of a Sunday afternoon 
 along the green lanes. Life had been 
 too matter-of-fact and full of hard 
 work to leave much sentiment even 
 in memory. 
 
 Mr. Robins heard of the accident 
 in the evening, and went up to the 
 
144 ZOE. 
 
 cottage, where he found Bill taking 
 care of Zoe, who was having a fine 
 time of it, having soon discovered 
 that she had only to cry for any 
 thing that evening to get it, and that 
 it was an occasion for displaying a 
 will of her own in the matter of go 
 ing to bed and being preternatnrnlly 
 wide awake and inclined for a game, 
 when on other nights she was quite 
 content to be laid down in the wooden 
 cradle, which was rapidly becoming 
 too small for her increasing size. 
 
 Poor Bill had been at school when 
 the accident happened, and of course 
 the neighbors had made the very worst 
 of the matter, so the poor boy hardly 
 knew what part of his father had not 
 
ZOE. 145 
 
 been crushed or injured, or if he had 
 been killed on the spot, or had been 
 taken barely alive to the hospital. 
 The baby had been pushed into his 
 arms, so that he could not go up to 
 the farm, nor find Tom to learn the 
 rights of the matter, so that when 
 Mr. Robins came into the cottage he 
 found both Bill and the baby crying 
 together, the fire out, and the kettle 
 upset into the fender. 
 
 " Give me the child," the organist 
 said. And Bill obeyed, as he did at 
 the choir practice when he was told 
 to pass a hymn-book, too miserable 
 to wonder much at this new aspect 
 of his master, and at seeing him 
 take the baby as if he knew all 
 10 
 
146 ZOE. 
 
 about it, and sit down in Father s 
 arm-chair. 
 
 " See if you can t make the fire 
 burn up," he went on; "the child s 
 cold." 
 
 Zoe seemed well content with her 
 new nurse and left off crying, and 
 sat blinking gravely at the fire, which 
 Bill, much relieved at having some 
 thing definite to do, soon roused up 
 to a sparkling, crackling blaze with 
 some dry sticks, while Mr. Robins 
 warmed her small, pink feet. 
 
 Bill would certainly have been sur 
 prised if he could have seen what was 
 passing in the organist s mind, a pro 
 posal ripening into a firm resolve that 
 he would take the child home that 
 
ZOE. 147 
 
 very night and tell Jane who she was. 
 Let the village talk as it might, he 
 did not mind; let them say what they 
 pleased. 
 
 He knew enough of village reports 
 to guess that Gray was not as badly 
 hurt as every one declared ; but still, 
 even a trifling accident meant, at any 
 rate, a week or two of very short 
 commons at the cottage, perhaps less 
 milk for the baby or economy over 
 fuel, and the September days were 
 growing cold and raw, and there had 
 been more than one frost in the morn 
 ings, and the babv s little toes were 
 
 O t/ 
 
 cold to his warm hand. Mrs. Gray, 
 too, would be occupied and taken up 
 with her husband, and little Zoe would 
 
148 ZOE. 
 
 be pushed about from one to another ; 
 and he had heard that there was scar 
 latina about, and the relieving officer 
 had been telling him that very morn- 
 ing how careless the people were about 
 infection. 
 
 The cottage looked quite different 
 in the blazing firelight, and Bill, en 
 couraged by the organist s presence, 
 tidied up the place, where the wash- 
 tub stood just as Mrs. Gray had left 
 it ; and he set the kettle on to boil, 
 so that when Mrs. Gray and Tom 
 came in it presented quite a comfort 
 able appearance. Mrs. Gray came in 
 tired and tearful, but decidedly hope 
 ful, having left Gray comfortably in 
 bed with his leg set, and having re- 
 
ZOE. 149 
 
 ceived reassuring opinions from nurse 
 and doctor ; and the first alarm and 
 apprehension being removed, there 
 was a certain feeling of importance 
 in her position as wife of the injured 
 man, and excitement at a visit to the 
 country town, both ways in a cart, 
 which does not happen often in a 
 lifetime. 
 
 The baby, thanks to the warmth 
 and Mr. Robins nursing, had fallen 
 asleep in his arms. Mrs. Gray was 
 so much confused and bewildered by 
 the events of the day that she would 
 hardly have been surprised to see the 
 Queen with the crown on her head 
 sitting there in the master s arm 
 chair, quite at home like, and hold- 
 
150 ZOE. 
 
 ing the baby on one arm and the 
 sceptre on the other; and Tom was 
 of too phlegmatic a disposition to be 
 surprised at anything. So they made 
 no remark, and Mr. Robins laid the 
 baby, still asleep, in Bill s arms, and 
 went away. 
 
 Such a beautiful, quiet September 
 night, with great soft stars overhead, 
 and the scent of fallen leaves in the 
 air ! the path beneath his feet was soft 
 with them, and as he passed under the 
 elms which by daylight were a blaze 
 of sunny gold, some leaves dropped 
 gently on his head. 
 
 " To-morrow," he said, " I will bring 
 little Zoe home, and I will let her 
 mother, I will let Edith know that the 
 
ZOE. 151 
 
 child is with me, and that if she 
 likes- "It needed but a word he 
 felt sure to bring the mother to the 
 baby, the daughter to her father. 
 
 He stood for a moment by the 
 churchyard gate, close to the spot 
 where that bitter, cruel parting had 
 been, and fancied what the meeting 
 would be. After all, what was his 
 feeling for little Zoe and his imagina 
 tion of what his little grandchild 
 would be to him in the future to the 
 delight of having Edith s arms round 
 his neck and holding her to his heart 
 once more ? 
 
 " Edith," he whispered softly, as he 
 turned away ; " Edith, come home ! " 
 
 " I wonder," he said to Jane Sands 
 
152 
 
 ZOE. 
 
 that night ; " I wonder if you could 
 find out an address for me ? " 
 
 She was folding up the tablecloth, 
 and she stopped with a puzzled look. 
 
 "An address? Whose?" 
 
 " Well," he said, without looking at 
 her, " I fancy there are still some of 
 the Blakes " (the word came out with a 
 certain effort) " living at Bilton, and 
 perhaps you could find out from them 
 the address I want; or, perhaps," he 
 added quickly, for she understood 
 now, and eager words were on her 
 lips, perhaps you know. There ! 
 never mind now ; if you know, you can 
 tell me to-morrow." 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 MORNING very often brings other 
 counsels, but this was not the case 
 with Mr. Robins, for when he got up 
 next day he was more than ever re 
 solved to carry out his intention of 
 bringing little Zoe home, and letting 
 her mother know that a welcome 
 awaited her in her old home. 
 
 He had not slept very much during 
 the night, for his mind had been too 
 full of the change that was coming in 
 his life, and of the difference that the 
 presence of Edith and little Zoe would 
 make in the dull, old house. Sad and 
 
154 ZOE. 
 
 worn and altered was she ! Ah ! that 
 would soon pass away with kindness 
 and care and happiness, and the cough 
 that had sounded so hollow and omin 
 ous should be nursed away, and Edith 
 should be a girl again, a girl as 
 she ought to be yet by right of her 
 years ; and those five years of suf 
 fering and estrangement should be 
 altogether forgotten as if they had 
 never been. 
 
 He went into the bedroom next his, 
 that had been Edith s, that was to 
 be Edith s again, and looking round 
 it, noticed with satisfaction that Jane 
 had kept it just as it had been in the 
 old days ; and he pushed the bed a 
 little to one side to make room for 
 
ZOE. 155 
 
 a cot to stand beside it, a cot which 
 he remembered in the night as having 
 stood for years in the lumber-room up 
 in the roof, and which he now with 
 much difficulty dragged out from be 
 hind some heavy boxes, and fitted 
 together, wishing there had been time 
 to give it a coat of paint, and yet glad 
 with a tremulous sort of gladness that 
 there was not, seeing that it would be 
 wanted that very night. 
 
 And just then Jane Sands came up 
 to call him to breakfast, and stood 
 looking from the cot to her master s 
 dusty coat, with such a look of de 
 lighted comprehension on her face 
 that the organist felt that no words 
 were needed to prepare her for what 
 was going to happen. 
 
156 ZOE. 
 
 "I thought," he said, "it had 
 better be brought down." 
 
 " Where shall it go ? " she asked. 
 
 " In Miss in the room next mine," 
 he said, " and it will want a good 
 
 airing." 
 
 "Shall I make up the bed too?" 
 she asked. 
 
 " Yes, you may as well." 
 
 " Oh, master," she said, the tears 
 shaking- in her voice and shining in 
 her eyes ; " will they be wanted 
 soon? Will they, maybe, be wanted 
 to-night ? " 
 
 His own voice felt suspiciously 
 shaky ; his own eyes could not see the 
 old cot, nor Jane s beaming face quite 
 plainly, so he only gave a gruff assent 
 and turned away. 
 
ZOE. 157 
 
 " What a good, kind creature she 
 is," he thought. " What a welcome 
 she will give Edith and Edith s little 
 Zoe ! " 
 
 During the morning he heard her 
 up in the room sweeping and scrub 
 bing, as if for these five years it had 
 been left a prey to dust and dirt, 
 and when he went out after dinner 
 to give a lesson at Bilton, she was 
 still at it with an energy worthy of a 
 woman half her age. 
 
 That stupid little girl at Bilton, who 
 generally found her music-lesson such 
 an intolerable weariness to the flesh, 
 and was conscious that it was no less 
 so to her teacher, found the half-hour 
 to-day quite pleasant. Mr. Robins 
 
158 ZOE. 
 
 had never been so kind and cheerful, 
 quite amusing, laughing at her mis 
 takes, and allowing her to play just 
 the things she knew best, and to get 
 up in the middle of the lesson to go to 
 the window and see a long procession 
 of gypsy vans going by to Smithurst 
 Fair. 
 
 It was such a very beautiful day ; 
 perhaps it was this that produced such 
 a good effect on the organist s temper. 
 There had been a frost that morning, 
 but it was not enough to strip the 
 trees, but only to turn the elms a 
 richer gold and the beeches a warmer 
 red and the oaks a ruddier brown, 
 while in the hedges the purple dog 
 wood and hawthorn and bramble 
 
ZOE. 159 
 
 leaves made a wonderful variety of 
 rich tints in the full bright sunshine, 
 which set the birds twittering with a 
 momentary delusion that it might 
 be spring. 
 
 He did not come back over the 
 hill, and past the Grays cottage, for 
 he was going to fetch the child that 
 evening ; but he came home by the 
 road, meeting many more of those 
 gypsy vans which had distracted his 
 pupil s attention, and looking with 
 kindliness on the swarthy men and 
 bronze dark-eyed women, for the sake 
 of little Zoe, who had been so often 
 called the gypsy baby. 
 
 When he reached home he found 
 the room prepared with all the care 
 
160 ZOE. 
 
 Jane Sands could lavish. He had 
 thought when he went in that morn 
 ing that it was just as Edith had left 
 it, and all in the most perfect order; 
 but now the room was a bower of 
 daintiness and cleanliness, and all 
 Edith s old treasures had been set out 
 in the very order she used to arrange 
 them. Why ! even her brush and 
 comb were laid ready on the dressing 
 table and a pair of slippers by the 
 bedside, and a small bunch of autumn 
 anemones and Czar violets was placed 
 in a little glass beside her books. He 
 smiled, but with tears in his eyes, as 
 he saw all these loving preparations. 
 
 " Edith can hardly be here to 
 night," he said to himself; " but Zoe 
 
ZOE. 161 
 
 will," and he smoothed the pillow of 
 the cot close to the bedside, and drew 
 the curtain more closely over its 
 head. 
 
 He found his tea set ready for him 
 when he came down, but Jane Sands 
 had gone out, and he was rather glad 
 of it, as she had watched him that 
 morning with an eager, expectant eye, 
 and he did not know what to say to 
 her. It would be easier when he 
 brought the baby and actually put it 
 into her arms. 
 
 The sun had set when he had 
 finished tea, a blaze of splendor set 
 tling down into dull purple and dead 
 orange, leaving a stripe of pale-green 
 sky over the horizon, flecked with a 
 11 
 
162 ZOE. 
 
 few soft brown clouds tinged with 
 red. 
 
 But envious night hastened to cover 
 lip and deaden the colors of the sky 
 and the almost equally gorgeous tints 
 of tree and hedge ; and by the time 
 Mr. Robins reached the Grays cot 
 tage, darkness had settled down as 
 deep as on that evening four months 
 ago, when he carried the baby and 
 left it there. 
 
 Now, as then, the cottage door was 
 open, and Mrs. Gray sat at work with 
 the candle close to her elbow, every 
 now and then giving a long sniff or a 
 sigh, that made the tallow candle 
 flicker and tremble. He had almost 
 forgotten her husband s accident in 
 
ZOE. 163 
 
 his absorption in the baby ; but these 
 sniffs recalled it to his mind, and he 
 thought he would give them a helping 
 hand while Gray was in the hospital. 
 
 " She has been kind to my little 
 Zoe," he thought, " and I will not for 
 get it in a hurry. She shall come and 
 see the child whenever she likes ; and 
 Edith will be good to her, for she has 
 been like a mother to the baby all 
 these months." 
 
 Close by where Mrs. Gray sat he 
 could see the foot of the old cradle 
 and the rocker within reach of the 
 woman s foot ; but Zoe must be asleep, 
 for there was no rocking necessary, 
 and Mrs. Gray did not turn from her 
 work to look at the child, though she 
 
1G4 ZOE. 
 
 stopped from time to time to wipe her 
 eyes on her apron. 
 
 " She is taken up with her hus 
 band," he said to himself; " it is as well 
 that I am going to take the child 
 away, as she will have no thought to 
 give her now." 
 
 And then he went into the cottage, 
 with a tap on the open door to 
 announce his presence. 
 
 " Good evening, Mrs. Gray," he 
 said in a subdued voice, so as not to 
 wake the baby. But he might have 
 spared himself this precaution, for the 
 next glance showed him that the 
 cradle was empty. 
 
 " Lord bless you, Mr. Robins," the 
 woman said, " you give me quite a 
 
ZOE. 165 
 
 start, coming in so quiet like. But, 
 there ! I m all of a tremble ; the 
 leastest thing do terrify me. You 
 might knock me down with a feather. 
 First one thing and then another! 
 The master yesterday and the baby 
 to-day ! " 
 
 "What!" he said, so sharp and 
 sudden, that it stopped the flow of 
 words for a moment. " What do you 
 mean ! Is the baby in bed upstairs ? 
 What s the matter? It s not the 
 scarlatina? Not " 
 
 " Bless you ! " she said, " why I 
 thought you d a-knowed. It aint the 
 scarlatina; the baby was as well and 
 bonny as ever when she went. 
 She ve agone, her mother come and 
 
1GG ZOE. 
 
 fetch her this very day, and took her 
 right off. Ay ! but she were pleased 
 to see how the little thing had got on, 
 and she said as she d never forget my 
 kindness, and how she d bring her to 
 see me whenever she come this way. 
 But, there ! I do miss her terrible. 
 Why, it s most worse than the master 
 himself." 
 
 The organist hardly listened to 
 what she was saying, after the fact of 
 the mother having come and fetched 
 her away. Edith had come for her 
 baby ! How had she known ? Why 
 had she done it to-day ? Could Jane 
 have let her know ; and had she 
 come so quickly to take the child her 
 self to her old home? His first im- 
 
ZOE. 167 
 
 pulse was to turn and hasten home ; 
 perhaps Edith and Zoe were there 
 already and would find him absent. 
 But he could not go without a word to 
 Mrs. Gray, who was wiping her eyes 
 in her apron and unconsciously rock 
 ing the empty cradle. 
 
 " You will often see her," he said 
 consolingly, " she will not be very far 
 away." 
 
 "Oh, I don t know about that; 
 them gypsies go all over the place, up 
 and down the country, and they don t 
 always come back for the fairs; 
 though she says as they don t often 
 miss Smithurst." 
 
 " Gypsies ? " he said puzzled. 
 
 "Ay, the mother s a gypsy sure 
 
168 ZOE. 
 
 enough, and I ve said it all along, and 
 the child s the very image of her ; 
 there was n t no doubt when one saw 
 the two together as they was mother 
 and child." 
 
 "Are you sure she was a gypsy?" 
 He had often said in fun that Edith 
 was a regular little gypsy, but he 
 would never have thought that any 
 one could really mistake her for one ; 
 and besides, Mrs. Gray must have 
 known Edith well enough, at any 
 rate by sight, in the old days, and 
 changed as she was, it was not beyond 
 all recognition. 
 
 " Oh, there wasn t no mistaking, 
 and the van as she belonged to waited 
 just outside the village, for I went 
 
ZOE. 169 
 
 down along with her and seed it, 
 painted yeller with red wheels. I 
 knowed Zoe was gypsy born, for she d 
 one of them charms round her neck as 
 I did n t meddle with, for they do say 
 as there s a deal of power in them 
 things, and that gypsies can t be 
 drovvnded or ketch fevers and things 
 as long as they keeps em." 
 
 Mr. Robins sat down in the chair 
 opposite Mrs. Gray. An odd, cold sort 
 of apprehension was stealing over him, 
 and the pleasant dream, of home and 
 Edith and Zoe, in which he had been 
 living through the day, was fading away 
 with every word the woman said. 
 
 " The funny part of it were that 
 she vowed and declared as she put 
 
170 ZOE. 
 
 the child at your door, and never 
 came this way at all ; leastways, from 
 what she said it must a-been your 
 house, for she said it was hard by 
 the church and had a thick hedge, 
 and that there was a kind sorter 
 body as she see there in the morn 
 ing, as must a-been Mrs. Sands and 
 nobody else from her account. She 
 said she was in a heap of trouble 
 just then, her husband ill and a deal 
 more, and she was pretty nigh at 
 her wits end, and that without think 
 ing twice what she were about, she 
 wropt the baby up and laid it close 
 agin the door of the house where 
 she d seen the kind-looking body. 
 She would have it as it was there, 
 
ZOE. 171 
 
 say what I would ; but maybe, poor 
 soul, she were mazed, and hardly 
 knew where she were. She went to 
 your house to-day, and Mrs. Sands 
 were quite put out with her, being 
 busy, too, and expecting company, 
 and thought it were just her impi- 
 dence ; but there ! I knows what 
 trouble is, and how it just mazes a 
 body, for 1 could no more tell where 
 I went nor what I did yesterday than 
 that table there. And another queer 
 thing is as she did n t know noth 
 ing about the name, and neither she 
 nor her husband can t read or write 
 noways, so she could n t have wrote 
 it down, and she d never heard tell 
 of such a name as Zoe, and did n t 
 
172 ZOE. 
 
 like it neither. She d always a-meant 
 it to be Rachel, as had been her 
 mother s name before her and her 
 grandmother s too." 
 
 " Are you quite certain she was the 
 mother ? " 
 
 " Certain ? Why, you d only to see 
 the two together to be sure of it. I d 
 not have let her go, not were it ever 
 so, if it had n t been as clear as day 
 light ; and just now, too, when I 
 seems to want her for a bit of com 
 fort ; " and here Mrs. Gray relapsed 
 into her apron. 
 
 Mr. Robins sat for a minute look 
 ing at her in silence, and then got 
 up, and without a word w r ent out 
 into the dark night, mechanically tak- 
 
ZOE. 173 
 
 ing the way to his house and then 
 turning on to the highroad to Smith- 
 urst, tramping along through the 
 mud and dead leaves with a dull, 
 heavy persistence. 
 
 Anything was better than going 
 back to the empty silence of his 
 house and Jane Sands expectant 
 face, and the pretty, white-curtained 
 room with the cot all ready for little 
 Zoe, who was already miles away 
 along that dark road before him, 
 sleeping, perhaps, in some dirty gypsy 
 van put up on some bit of waste 
 land by the roadside, or perhaps sur 
 rounded by the noise and glare of 
 the fair with its shows and round 
 abouts. His little Zoe! he could not 
 
174 ZOE. 
 
 possibly have been so utterly de 
 ceived all through, the baby who 
 had lain on his bed, whose little face 
 he had felt as he carried her up to 
 the Grays cottage in the dark, whom 
 he had seen day after day and never 
 failed to notice the likeness, growing 
 stronger with the child s growth ! Was 
 it all a delusion ; all the foolish fancy 
 of a fond old man ? He tried hard 
 to believe that it was impossible that 
 he could have been so deceived, and 
 yet from the very first he felt that it 
 was so, and that the love that had 
 been growing in his heart all these 
 months had been lavished on a gypsy 
 baby whose face most likely he should 
 never see again. 
 
ZOE. 175 
 
 And all his plans for the future, 
 his dreams of reparation, of tender re 
 conciliation with Edith, and of happy, 
 peaceful days that would obliterate 
 the memory of past trouble and alien 
 ation, they had all vanished with the 
 gypsy baby ; life was as empty as the 
 cradle by Mrs. Gray s side. 
 
 Where was he to find his daughter? 
 Where had she wandered that night 
 when the pitiless rain fell and the 
 sullen wind moaned ? Was that the 
 last he should ever see of her, with 
 the white, wan, pleading face under 
 the yew-tree ; and would that de 
 spairing voice saying " Father 1 " haunt 
 his ears till his dying day ; and would 
 the wailing cry that followed him as 
 
176 ZOE. 
 
 he went to his house that night be 
 the only thing he should ever know 
 of his grandchild, the real little Zoe 
 whom he had rejected? 
 
 He was several miles away along the 
 Smithurst road when he first realized 
 what he was doing, brought to the 
 consciousness, perhaps, by the fact of 
 being weary and footsore and wet 
 through from a fine rain that had 
 begun falling soon after he left the 
 village. It must be getting late too ; 
 many of the cottages he passed showed 
 no light from the windows, the in 
 mates most likely being in bed. 
 
 Painfully and wearily he toiled back 
 to Downside; he seemed to have no 
 spirit left to contend against even 
 
ZOE. 177 
 
 such trifling things as mud and in 
 equalities in the road, and when a 
 bramble straying from the hedge 
 caught his coat and tore it, he could 
 almost have cried in feeble vexation 
 of spirit. Downside street was all 
 dark and quiet, but from the organ 
 ist s house a light shone out from 
 the open door and down the garden 
 path, making a patch of light on the 
 wet road. 
 
 Some one stood peering out into 
 the darkness, and at the sound of 
 his dragging, stumbling footsteps, Jane 
 Sands ran down to the gate. The 
 long waiting had made her anxious, 
 for she was breathless and trembling 
 
 with excitement. 
 
 12 
 
178 ZOE. 
 
 "Where have you been?" she said; 
 " we got so frightened. Why are you 
 so late ? Oh, dearie me ! " as she 
 caught sight of his face. " You re 
 ill ! Something has happened ! There, 
 come in, do ee, now ; you look fit to 
 drop ! " 
 
 He pushed by her almost roughly 
 into the house and dropped down 
 wearily into the arm-chair. He was 
 too worn out and exhausted to no 
 tice anything, even the warmth and 
 comfort of the bright fire and the sup 
 per ready on the table. He tossed his 
 soaked hat on the ground, and lean 
 ing his elbows on his knees and his 
 head on his hands, sat bowed down with 
 the feeling of utter wretchedness. 
 
ZOE. 179 
 
 Day alter day, night after night, 
 till his life s end, plenty and comfort, 
 and neatness and respectability and 
 warmth in dull monotony ; while out 
 side somewhere in the cold and rain, 
 in poverty and want and wretched 
 ness, wandered Edith with the wail 
 ing baby in her arms ! 
 
 " You can go to bed," he said 
 to Jane Sands ; " I don t want any 
 supper." 
 
 She drew back and went softly out 
 of the room; but some one else was 
 standing there looking down at the 
 bowed white head with eyes fuller 
 even of pity and tears than Jane s 
 had been, and then she too left the 
 room, and with a raised finger to 
 
180 ZOE. 
 
 Jane, who was waiting in the passage, 
 she went upstairs, and as if the way 
 were well known to her, to the little 
 room which had been got ready so 
 uselessly for the organist s daughter. 
 
 There, sheltered by the bed-curtain, 
 was the cot where Zoe was to have 
 lain, and there, wonderful to relate, a 
 child s dark head might be seen deep 
 in the soft pillow, deeper in soft sleep. 
 
 And then this strangely presuming 
 intruder in the organist s house softly 
 took up the sleeping child, and wrap 
 ping a shawl round it, carried it, still 
 sleeping, downstairs, the dark lashes 
 resting on the round cheek flushed with 
 sleep and of a fairer tint than gypsy 
 Zoe s, and the rosy mouth half open. 
 
ZOE. 181 
 
 The organist still sat with his head 
 in his hands and did not stir as she 
 entered, not even when she came and 
 knelt down on the hearth in front of 
 him. 
 
 Jane Sands was unusually tiresome 
 to-night, he thought; why could she 
 not leave him alone? 
 
 And then against his cold hands 
 clasped over his face was laid some 
 thing soft and warm and tender, 
 surely a little child s hand ! and a 
 voice a voice he had never thought 
 to hear again till maybe it sounded as 
 his accuser before the throne of grace 
 said : " Father, for Zoe s sake." 
 
"The sparrow again waited until the child had almost reached him." 
 
 SPARROW THE TRAMP. ^ f 
 
 HOEFT. With illustrations by Jessie McDermott. Price, #1.25. 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, BOSTON 
 
In .sf )!/<{/* Dark Country. 
 
 KIBBOO GANEY; 
 
 OR, THE LOST CHIEF OF THE COPPER MOUN 
 TAINS. A Story of travel and adventure in the heart oi 
 Africa. By WALTER WENTWORTH. 
 
 16mo. Cloth. Illustrated. Price, $1.25. 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS. BOSTON. 
 
SUSAN COOLIDGi S POPULAR BOOKS. 
 
 
 CLOVER. A Sequel to the Katy Books. By SUSAN 
 COOLIDGE. With illustrations by Jessie McDermott. Square 
 i6mo. Cloth. Price, $1.25. 
 
 All the children will want to know more about " What Katy Did." 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, PunusiiFRS. Boston 
 
THE KINGDOM OF COINS. 
 
 a Salt for CJjtftittn of ail 
 BY JOHX BKADLEY GILMAN. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY F. T. MERRILL. 
 
 // is an ingenious story of a little boy who falls asleep while 
 clutching a penny, and dreams that he meets Mr. Midas, and by 
 him is conducted to the Kingdom of Coins, where he is taught, in 
 an object-lesson manner, the proverbs of the people in regard to 
 money. " Penny-wise and pound-foolish? " A penny saved is a 
 penny earned," and other saws are thus impressed upon him. 
 The book is readable and does not smack of the worn-out 
 fairy-tale. THE EPOCH. 
 
 Small 4to, illuminated board covers. Price, 60 cents. 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON. 
 
PRINCE VANCE. 
 
 A Story of a Prince with a Court in His Box. By ELEANOR 
 PUTNAM and ARLO BATES. Illustrated by Frank Myrick. 
 
 " Prince Vance " is an Entertaining Fairy Story of tJu> -wildest and most 
 fantastic adventures and of amusing and original impossibilities, -which, 
 ho-wever, carry -with them a stern p^^ritan moral. This allegiance of un 
 fettered imagination and straightforward, -wholesome, moral teaching is 
 unusual , and gives the little book a special value. 
 
 Small 4to. Cloth gilt. Price, $1.50. 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON. 
 
Messrs. Roberts Brothers Publication*. 
 MRS, DODGES POPULAR BOOK 
 
 A PORTRAIT OF DOROTHY AT SIXTEEN. 
 
 DONALD AND DOROTHY. 
 
 BY MARY MAPES DODGE. 
 
 Beautifully Illustrated and Bound. Price $1.50. 
 
 An honest tribute from an admiring friend. 
 
 " DEAR MRS. DODGB, I have just finished your book called Donald and 
 Dorothy for the third or fourth time, and would like very much to know 
 whether Dorothy is a real person, and if so, what is her name ? I am nearly 
 as old as Dorothy was at the close of the book, so am very much interested 
 m her. I would also HKC to know how old she is, and where she lives. If you 
 /.mild be kind enough to reply, yoj would preatly oblisre 
 
 " Your admiring friend," 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, BOSTON 
 
MRS. EYftNG S GIEL-BOOK, 
 
 SIX TO SIXTEEN. A Story for Girls. By Mrs. 
 
 EWING. Price, 50 cents. 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 
 
 Boston. 
 
MRS. EWING S LAST BOOK. 
 
 -J^^^r" "~~ ^^ 
 j^r^ 7 
 
 JACKANAPES. 
 
 DADDY DARWIN S DOVECOT. 
 
 THE STORY OF A SHORT LIFE. 
 
 With a Sketch of Mrs. Ewicg s Life by her Sister, H. K, F, Gatty, 
 
 in one volume, with Illustrations by RANDOLPH CALDECOTT and GORDON 
 BROWNE. Price, 50 cents. 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON. 
 
MRS. EICHARDS S STORY. 
 
 "The man taught him to beat the drum." 
 
 THE JOYOUS STORY OF TOTO. 
 BY LAURA E, RICHARDS. 
 
 With Illustrations by E. H. GARRETT. IGmo. Price, 
 $1,25. 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers, 
 
 BOSTON. 
 
ni tht- Author of JoUy Good Times." 
 
 THEIR CANOE TRIP. 
 
 By MARY P. W. SMITH, 
 
 AUTHOR OF THE "BROWNS." 
 
 A story founded on the actual experiences of two Koxbtiry boy s, during a 
 canoe trip on the Concord, Merrimac, Piscataquog, and other rivers. 
 
 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.25. 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS. BOSTON. 
 
rtfhitaker 
 
 961691 
 
 Evelyn 3 
 
 955 
 T578 
 
 Zoe 
 
 
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 961691 
 
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