Maggie Miller | Page 8

the riddle, and know 'taint blood that makes the difference. Just tell her the truth once, and she'd quickly change her mind. Hester's blue, pinched nose, which makes one think of fits, would be the very essence of aristocracy, while Maggie's lip would come of the little Paddy blood there is running in her veins!"
And still Madam Conway herself was not one-half so proud of the bright, playful Maggie as was old Hagar, who, when they were alone, would hug her to her bosom, and gaze fondly on her fair, round face and locks of silken hair, so like those now resting in the grave. In the meantime Mrs. Miller, who since her daughter's birth, had never left her room, was growing daily weaker, and when Maggie was nearly nine months old she died, with the little one folded to her bosom, just as Hester Hamilton had held it when she too passed from earth.
"Doubly blessed," whispered old Hagar, who was present, and then when she remembered that to poor little Hester a mother's blessing would never be given she felt that her load of guilt was greater than she could bear. "She will perhaps forgive me if I confess it to her over Miss Margaret's coffin," she thought; and once when they stood together by the sleeping dead, and Madam Conway, with Maggie in her arms, was bidding the child kiss the clay-cold lips of its mother, old Hagar attempted to tell her. "Could you bear Miss Margaret's death as well," she said, "if Maggie, instead of being bright and playful as she is, were weak and sick like Hester?" and her eyes fastened themselves upon Madam Conway with an agonizing intensity which that lady could not fathom. "Say, would you bear it as well--could you love her as much--would you change with me, take Hester for your own, and give me little Maggie?" she persisted, and Madam Conway, surprised at her excited manner, which she attributed in a measure to envy, answered coldly: "Of course not. Still, if God had seen fit to give me a child like Hester, I should try to be reconciled, but I am thankful he has not thus dealt with me."
"'Tis enough. I am satisfied," thought Hagar. "She would not thank me for telling her. The secret shall be kept;" and half exultingly she anticipated the pride she should feel in seeing her granddaughter grown up a lady and an heiress.
Anon, however, there came stealing over her a feeling of remorse, as she reflected that the child defrauded of its birthright would, if it lived, be compelled to serve in the capacity of a servant; and many a night, when all else was silent in the old stone house, she paced up and down the room, her long hair, now fast turning gray, falling over her shoulders, and her large eyes dimmed with tears, as she thought what the future would bring to the infant she carried in her arms.
But the evil she so much dreaded never came, for when the winter snows were again falling they made a little grave beneath the same pine tree where Hester Hamilton lay sleeping, and, while they dug that grave, old Hagar sat, with folded arms and tearless eyes, gazing fixedly upon the still white face and thin blue lips which would never again be distorted with pain. Her habit of talking to herself had returned, and as she sat there she would at intervals whisper: "Poor little babe! I would willingly have cared for you all my life, but I am glad you are gone to Miss Margaret, who, it may be, will wonder what little thin-faced angel is calling her mother! But somebody'll introduce you, somebody'll tell her who you are, and when she knows how proud her mother is of Maggie she'll forgive old Hagar Warren!"
"Gone stark mad!" was the report carried by the servants to their mistress, who believed the story when Hagar herself came to her with the request that Hester might be buried in some of Maggie's clothes.
Touched with pity by her worn, haggard face, Madam Conway answered, "Yes, take some of her common ones," and, choosing the cambric robe which Hester had worn on the morning when the exchange was made, Hagar dressed the body for the grave. When at last everything was ready, and the tiny coffin stood upon the table, Madam Conway drew near and looked for a moment on the emaciated form which rested quietly from all its pain. Hovering at her side was Hagar, and feeling it her duty to say a word of comfort the stately lady remarked that it was best the babe should die; that were it her grandchild she should feel relieved; for had it lived, it would undoubtedly have been