The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1905-06-24

After having fused around for
ten or fifteen years about the way the
average girls and boys guardians per-
init them to grow up, and giving her
married friends unsolicited advice on
how to bring up their sons and daugh-
ters, Belinda acquired. through her
marriage to a widower. a. step daugh-
ter upon whom to try her experiments.
Most of her friends thought it was d
shame, for the girl, but they laughed
just to think what a crtmp her ready
made daughter would put in Belinda's
theories. They did not hesitate to say,
those who. knew her best, that she had
married the father because she was
so anxious to try her hand at bringing
up his daughter, and there may have
been some truth in it.
Belinda had always dotted on chill
dren and this was the only reason size
had often said in her spinsterhoOd,
that she regretted not having married.
She had often contemplated adopting
q child and had visited many founding
asylums with this in view. but nothing
ever came of it. The children were al
ways too Sickly or too ugly or too
dull, or else they had been started
wrong" as Belinda expressed it, and
she felt that if they were to overcome
the handicap of bad or Indifferent
birth they should have the best in
IuenCes from an early stage. For this
reason she listened to the warnings of
-AEA AA4@4A47 anu save ~ AA~A4C AAf[
year old Tommy whom she had found
selling papers in the street and who
had attracted her as much by his
piti2ul, unprotected youth as by his
goca looks and precOcious cleverness.
Belinda had adOred Tommy from
the start. He had such angelic eyes,
SO big and blue and honest, and such
Fascinating freckles and such an
implsh grin. Tommy's father and
mother were dead but there were four
or five unpromising half-brothers, a
good bit older than Tommy in the
family They all lived together some
how but nobody looked after Tommy
much. The brothers had not thought
of sending him to school nor of OBJ
jecting to his selling papers in the
street. Maybe they had encouraged it,
in order to be rid as soon as possible
of such slight responsibility as they
felt for his welfare. Anyway, when
Belinda asked permission to take him
home with her for a few days they
didn't object and no doubt they were
disauDOinted when she brought him
back again. Belinda did this, not be-
cause she wasn't learning to love
Tommy. but because she was. and be-
cause all her friends said it would be
the greatest mistake of her life to
think OF adopting child from such a
family and one who in his short life
was already acquainted with so many
things 1t would be difficult, if not i'm
possible, to make him forget Belinda
had her doubts about her friends
counsel. but then she had her doubts
about her own. And after d while she
decided not to take the risk. She
thought she would do what she could
for Tommy. however, so she made ar
engagements for him to Tenter the
parochiaI school in the parish where
he lived. but the next time she went
to see him she found that the vaga-
bond brothers had left town taking
Tommy with them and so she lost
track Of her protege-
It was shortly after that she mar
ried the widower and incidentally
came into possession Of her step
daughter, a little girl of great beauty,
and great promise. excellently born
her mother was a Peyton Of Virginia
and an heiress- Moreover she was
very. young, her mind and habits quite
undeveloped and Belinda felt that she
might congratulate herself upon hav-
ing a fair start.
But you know things rarely turn
out as we plan Five years after Be
linda married she was left a widow.
and an almost penniless widow at
that. and she and her beautiful young
Btapdaughter had to give I'd the big