"Well, she was buried and we took the child and cared for her. We came to love her as though she had been our own; we always loved her as though she had been our own. Less than a year after the mother died--that was when Ellie was about eighteen months old--we brought her with us out here to this town. Her baptismal name was Eleanor, which had been her mother's name--Eleanor Major. The father who ran away was named Richard Major. We went on calling her Eleanor, but as our child she became Eleanor Millsap. She has never suspected--she has never for one moment dreamed that she was not our own. After she grew up and showed indifference to us, and especially after she had married and began to behave toward us in a way which has caused her, I expect, to be criticized by some people, we still nursed that secret and it gave us comfort. For we knew, both of us, that it was the alien blood in her that made her turn her back upon us. We knew the reason, if no one else did, for she was not our own flesh and blood. Our own could never have served us so. And to-night I know better than ever before, and it lessens my sense of disappointment and distress.
"Judge Priest, perhaps you will not understand me, but the mother instinct is a curious thing. Through these last few years of my life I have felt as though there were two women inside of me. One of these women grieved because her child had denied her. The other of these women was reconciled because she could see reflected in the actions of that child the traits of a breed of strangers. And yet both these women can still find it in them to forgive her for all that she has done and all that she may ever do. That's motherhood, I suppose."
"Yes, ma'am," he said slowly, "I reckin you're right--that's motherhood." He tugged at his tab of white chin whisker, and his puckered old eyes behind their glasses were shadowed with a deep compassion. Then with a jerk he sat erect.
"I take it that you adopted the child legally?" he said, seeking to make his tone casual.
"We took her just as I told you," she answered. "We always treated her as though she had been ours. She never knew any difference."
"Yes, ma'am, quite so. You've made that clear enough. But by law, before you left Maryland, you gave her your name, I suppose? You went through the legal form of law of adoptin' her, didn't you?"