"No!" she repeated, more
decidedly. "I am glad, Miriam--mother."
"You can call me mother, then, despite all?"
"Surely," Mollie said, gravely; "and now tell me all."
"Ah, it is a long, sad story--a wicked and miserable story of shame, and
sin, and suffering! It is a cruel thing to blight your young life with
the record of such horrible things."
"I may surely bear what others have to endure. But, Miriam, before you
begin, do you really mean to tell me Mr. Walraven thinks me his
daughter?"
"He believes it as surely as he believes in Heaven. He thinks you are
his child--Mary Dane's daughter."
"Who was Mary Dane?"
"Your father's sister by marriage--done to death by Carl Walraven."
Mollie turned very pale.
"Tell me all," she said. "Begin at the beginning. Here, drink this--it
is wine."
She had brought a pocket-flask with her. She filled a broken tea-cup and
held it to the dry, parched lips.
Miriam drained it eagerly.
"Ah!" she said, "that is new life! Sit down here by me, Mollie, where I
can see you; give me your hands. Now listen:
"Mollie, you are eighteen years old, though neither you nor Carl
Walraven thinks so.
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