



Produced by Al Haines










[Illustration: Cover art]






ZOE




BY THE AUTHOR OF

'LADDIE,' 'DON,' 'POMONA,' 'BELLE,' 'PHOEBE'S HERO,' 'MISS TOOSEY'S
MISSION,' 'TIP CAT,' ETC.



[Transcriber's note: The British Library Integrated Catalogue cites
Evelyn Whitaker as the author of this book.]




LONDON: 38 Soho Square. W.1

W. & R. CHAMBERS, LIMITED

EDINBURGH: 339 High Street


1890




[Transcriber's note: The source book had varying page headers.  They
have been collected at the start of each chapter as an introductory
paragraph, and here as the Table of Contents.]


CONTENTS


CHAPTER I.

The Christening--An Outlandish Name--The Organist's
Mistake--Farm-work--Tom and Bill--The Baby--Baby and All


CHAPTER II.

Mr Robins--Village Choirs--Edith--An Elopement--A Father's Sorrow--An
Unhappy Pair--The Wanderer's Return--Father!--A Daughter's
Entreater--No Favourable Answer--A Sleepless Pillow


CHAPTER III.

Something on the Doorstep--Bill Gray--Is That a Cat?--She's Like
Mother--A Baby's Shoe--Jane Restless


CHAPTER IV.

Village Evidence--'Gray' on the Brain--Too Well He Knew--Mr Robins and
the Baby--He Had Not Done Badly


CHAPTER V.

Jane Hard at Work--Clothes for the Baby--Jane Returns--Jane Singing
over her Work--Jane's Selfish Absorption--For a Poor Person's
Child--The Organist in Church


CHAPTER VI.

The Good Baby--Mr Robins Comes and Goes--A Secret Power--Mr Robins
Happy--A Naughty Tiresome Gal!--The Gypsy Child


CHAPTER VII.

Gray Taken to the Hospital--Bill and the Baby--Mrs Gray Home
Again--Edith, Come Home!


CHAPTER VIII.

Preparation--The Room Furnished--Mrs Gray at Work--The Baby Gone--The
Gypsy Mother--The Gypsy's Story--A Foolish Fancy--Something Has
Happened--The Real Baby




ZOE.

CHAPTER I.

The Christening--An Outlandish Name--The Organist's
Mistake--Farm-work--Tom and Bill--The Baby--Baby and All


'Hath this child been already baptised, or no?'

'No, she ain't; leastwise we don't know as how she've been or no, so
we thought as we 'd best have her done.'

The clergyman who was taking Mr Clifford's duty at Downside for that
Sunday, thought that this might be the usual undecided way of answering
among the natives, and proceeded with the service.  There were two
other babies also brought that afternoon, one of which was crying
lustily, so that it was not easy to hear what the sponsors answered;
and, moreover, the officiating clergyman was a young man, and the
prospect of holding that screaming, red-faced, little object made him
too nervous and anxious to get done with it to stop and make further
inquiries.

The woman who returned this undecided answer was an elderly woman, with
a kind, sunburnt, honest face, very much heated just now, and
embarrassed too; for the baby in her arms prevented her getting at her
pocket handkerchief to wipe the perspiration from her brow and pulling
her bonnet on to its proper position on her head.  The man beside her
was also greatly embarrassed, and kept shuffling his large hob-nailed
shoes together, and turning his hat round and round in his fingers.

I think that really that hat was the chief cause of his discomfort, for
he was so accustomed to have it on his head that he could not feel
quite himself without it; and, indeed, his wife could hardly recognise
him, as she had been accustomed to see him wearing it indoors and out
during the twenty years of their married life; pushed back for meals or
smoking, but always on his head, except in bed, and even there, report
says, on cold winter nights, he had recourse to it to keep off the
draught from that cracked pane in the window.  His face, like his
wife's, was weatherbeaten, and of the same broad, flat type as hers,
with small, surprised, dazzled-looking, pale blue eyes, and a tangle of
grizzled light hair under his chin.  He was noticeable for the green
smock-frock he wore, a garment which is so rapidly disappearing before
the march of civilisation, and giving place to the ill-cut, ill-made
coat of shoddy cloth, which is fondly thought to resemble the squire's.

The christening party was completed by a hobbledehoy lad of about
sixteen, who tried to cover his invincible shyness by a grin, and to
keep his foolish eyes from the row of farm