"The old fool!" exclaimed Anne, dismissing the bland smile from her face as the last fold of madame's dress fluttered through the door; "after all, she might do worse than to adopt this child. I could easier get rid of that baby than her second husband. I must rein up a little, with my flattery, or she may start off on that track.
"Poor Perry, indeed!" soliloquized Anne, "what geese men are! how many of them, I wonder, have had reason to thank their stars, that they did not get what their hearts were once set on. Well--any will-o'-the-wisp who trips it lightly, can lead any Solomon by the nose; it is a humiliating fact;" and Miss Anne took a look at herself in the glass; "sense is at a discount; well, it is the greatest compliment the present generation of men could have paid me, never to have made me an offer."
"And you, then, are the mother of the beautiful child, I wish to adopt?" asked Madame Vincent, gazing admiringly at Rose.
Our heroine's long lashes drooped upon a cheek that crimsoned like the heart of a June rose, as she timidly answered:
"You are extremely pretty, child, and very young to be a mother. Have you any other children?"
"And you would not give him up to me?" asked madame, coaxingly. "Do you think his father would object?"
"His father is dead, madame," said Rose, in a low voice.
"Pardon me, child, I did not know that you were a widow. _I_ am a widow. It is very dull, being a widow; don't you think so, dear? Did your husband leave you property?"
"No," replied Rose, answering the inexcusable question, for she could not bear to seem disrespectful to Vincent's mother.
"That is a pity, dear; my husband left me plenty. I shall will it all to Charley, if you will only give him up to me. What was your husband's name, dear."
"Vincent L'Estrange Vincent;" answered Rose, startled at the strange sound of her own voice.
"Singular! Same name as my son's," said madame, "Very singular."
"He _was_ your son;" said Rose, in the same strange, cold tone.
"My son never was married;" replied madame.
"God knows he told me we were so, and I believed him," answered Rose.
"He made believe marry you, then, did he?" asked the childish old lady. "He did that to a great many women, I believe. Gentlemen often do such things, so they tell me. Your child is of course illegitimate then."