her and her own children, knew well whom she was trusting.

From that solemn hour, in the middle of the night, when she lifted
the hour-old baby out of its dead mother's bed into her own, it
became Johanna's one object in life. Through a sickly infancy, for it
was a child born amidst trouble, her sole hands washed, dressed, fed
it; night and day it "lay in her bosom, and was unto her as a
daughter."

She was then just thirty: not too old to look forward to woman's
natural destiny, a husband and children of her own. But years slipped
by, and she was Miss Leaf still. What matter! Hilary was her
daughter.

Johanna's pride in her knew no bounds. Not that she showed it much;
indeed she deemed it a sacred duty not to show it; but to make
believe her "child" was just like other children. But she was not.
Nobody ever thought she was--even in externals.--Fate gave her all
those gifts which are sometimes sent to make up for the lack of
worldly prosperity. Her brown eyes were as soft a doves' eyes, yet
could dance with fun and mischief if they chose; her hair, brown
also, with a dark-red shade in it, crisped itself in two wavy lines
over her forehead, and then turn bled down in two glorious masses,
which Johanna, ignorant, alas! of art, called very "untidy," and
labored in vain to quell under combs, or to arrange in proper,
regular curls Her features--well, they too, were good; better than
those unartistic people had any idea of--better even than Selina's,
who in her youth had been the belle of the town. But whether
artistically correct or not, Johanna, though she would on no account
have acknowledged it, believed solemnly that there was not such a