what I can to make up for it. It won’t be for long. Her kin will come to claim her.”

Had Eliza not felt responsible, she could have been nothing but good to the child. Mothers of the locality fixed the age of the little girl at about three. Others placed it as high as five. There she was dropped in among them without a name or even a birthday. She was a well-formed, beautiful child with brown ringlets clinging about her little plump neck; and eyes matching in color the blue of the midsummer sky. She was good-tempered and healthy. She smiled from the time she awoke until she fell asleep from sheer weariness. She prattled and hummed little tunes, only a few of the words of which she could remember. She followed Eliza wherever the woman went, and crawled into her lap and cuddled close to her the instant she seated herself. “Pity adee” was the only title she knew for Miss Eliza. After a few days, the name was fixed: “Adee.” The little girl could not be persuaded to call her foster-parent by any other name. A child can manage to thrive and yet have no birthday; but a name it must have. For several days Eliza referred to the stranger as “the little girl.” This was not satisfactory.

“She must be called something. It’s simply heathenish not to have a name of some kind. I’ll name her myself if I cannot find out what her name is,” concluded Miss Eliza. She set about to find the real name. The monogram E. L. on the pins was the only clue. The child might remember something. Taking her up in her lap, Eliza began a system of catechising.

“What shall Adee call you?”

“Baby.” She smiled back at her interlocutor until the dimples came and went.

“A prettier name than Baby. Shall I call you Elizabeth—Beth—Bessie?” She pronounced each name slowly, watching if it might awaken any show of memory. But it did not. The little girl smiled the more, even while she shook her head in negation.

“No, no—Izbeth not pitty name. Baby—‘Itta one’ pitty name.”

Eliza would not let herself become discouraged. “Little One” and “Baby” were pet names given by some adoring fathers and mothers. Perhaps the child had seldom heard her correct name. Guided by the letters on the pins, Eliza repeated every name beginning with E; but it was without results.

“You must be called something,” she at last cried in desperation. “It must begin with E too. Elizabeth will do as well an anything else. It’s dignified enough for her 

 Prev. P 14/85 next