"Merely washed, combed, and dressed her," said Mrs. Margaret; "give me
credit, nephew, and tell me what I have brought out by my diligence."

"You have brought out a brilliant from an unfinished stone," exclaimed
Mr. Dymock; "that is a beautiful child; I shall have extreme delight in
making as much of that fine mind, as you have done with that beautiful
exterior."

"Then you do not think of putting her in a foundling hospital or a
workhouse, nephew, as you proposed last night?" said Mrs. Margaret,
with a smile.

"It would be a folly," replied the nephew, "to degrade such a creature
as that;" and he attempted to kiss the baby; but, swift as thought, she
had turned her face away, and was clinging to Mrs. Margaret.

The old lady primmed up again with much complacency, "Did I not tell
you, nephew, how it was," she said, "nothing will do but Aunt Margaret.
Well, I suppose I must give her my poor pussy's corner in my bed. But
now her back is turned to you, Dymock, observe the singular mark on her
shoulder, and tell me what it is?"

Mr. Dymock saw this mark with amazement:--He saw that it was no natural
mark; and at length, though not till after he had examined it many
times, he made it out, or fancied he had done so, to be a branch of a
palm tree. From the first he had made up his mind that this was a Jewish
child; and, following the idea of the palm-tree, and tracing the word in
a Hebrew lexicon,--for he was a Hebrew scholar, though not a deep
one,--he found that Tamar was the Hebrew for a palm tree. "And Tamar it
shall be," he said; "this maid of Judah, this daughter of Zion shall be