her lip was sweet, and occasionally humorous. Her chin was strong, and
the total of her face what we call masculine; but when she silently
regarded her child, it grew beautiful with the radiant tenderness of
protection.

Her visitors left the door open behind them; Jane rose and shut it, sat
down again, and gazed motionless at the infant. Perhaps he vaguely
understood the sorrow and dread of her countenance, for he pulled a long
face of his own, and was about to cry. Jane clasped him to her bosom in
an agony: she felt certain she would not long be permitted to hold him
there. In the silent speech of my lady's mouth, her jealous love saw the
doom of her darling. What precise doom she dared not ask herself; it was
more than enough that she, indubitably his guardian as if sent from
heaven to shield him, must abandon him to his natural enemy, one who
looked upon him as the adversary of her own children. It was a thought
not to be thought, an idea for which there should be no place in her
bosom! Unfathomable as the love between man and woman is the love of
woman to child.

She spent a wakeful night. From the decree of banishment sure to go forth
against her, there was no appeal! Go she must! Yet her heart cried out
that he was her own. In the same lap his mother had lain before him! She
had carried her by day, and at night folded her in the same arms, herself
but six years old--old enough to remember yet the richness unspeakable of
her new possession. Never had come difference betwixt them until Robina
began to give ear to sir Wilton, whom Jane could not endure. When she
responded, as she did at once, to her sister's cry for her help, she made
her promise that no one should understand who she was, but that she
should in the house be taken for and treated as a hired nurse. Why Jane
stipulated thus, it were hard to say, but so careful were they both, that