The next day seemed never coming. But at last poor George felt as if
his worst doom would be sealed now. The lady in waiting informed him
that she felt happy to be able to tell him that his child (a little
girl) was alive and at that present moment at a convent in Cemetery
street, where he could see it and take it out on payment of its
maintenance. The lady's clothes had been disposed of. As already
stated, a long time had elapsed since her death. Capt. Fairfield,
with a few lines from the sisters of St. Pelagie, proceeded to the St.
Joseph's Home, on Cemetery street, and, on handing the note, a
little girl about three years old was shown to him to be his child.
The poor little girl seemed afraid to look at him, and as the child
could only speak French he felt as if a board was between him and the
child; but her looks, he thought, were somewhat like his beloved
Agnes. The child's little curls had been cut a few days before, so a
nun told him. What was he to do with the child? He was not a Captain
now, and would have to make first a position for himself again, and
then he could claim his child. The child seemed happy, and the nuns
offering to keep it for a moderate price he decided to give what
money he had earned during his passage and come again and again till
the little girl could speak English to him, which the nuns promised
to teach her, and then, to take her horde to his native land.
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