"God bless you, my dear!" he
murmured, with unwonted tenderness to his son's daughter. Then he
took out his purse, and drew from it a whole gold sovereign.
"That's for you, my child," he said, fondling the pretty golden
curls. "Take it home, and tell your mammy an old man in the street
gave it to you."
But the coachman observed to the footman, as they drove on together
to the next noble patient's, "You may take your oath on it, Mr.
Wells, that little 'un there was Mr. Alan's love-child!"
Dolly had never held so much money in her hand before; she ran
home, clutching it tight, and burst in upon Herminia with the
startling news that Sir Anthony Merrick, a very grand gentleman in
a very fine carriage, had given a gold piece to her.
Gold pieces were rare in the calm little attic, but Herminia caught
her child up with a cry of terror; and that very same evening, she
changed the tainted sovereign with Dolly for another one, and sent
Sir Anthony's back in an envelope without a word to Harley Street.
The child who was born to free half the human race from aeons of
slavery must be kept from all contagion of man's gold and man's
bribery.
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