Time was, when
the Foundlings were received without question in a cradle at the gate.
Time is, when inquiries are made respecting them, and they are taken as
by favour from the mothers who relinquish all natural knowledge of them
and claim to them for evermore.
The moon is at the full, and the night is fair with light clouds. The
day has been otherwise than fair, for slush and mud, thickened with the
droppings of heavy fog, lie black in the streets. The veiled lady who
flutters up and down near the postern-gate of the Hospital for Foundling
Children has need to be well shod to-night.
She flutters to and fro, avoiding the stand of hackney-coaches, and often
pausing in the shadow of the western end of the great quadrangle wall,
with her face turned towards the gate. As above her there is the purity
of the moonlit sky, and below her there are the defilements of the
pavement, so may she, haply, be divided in her mind between two vistas of
reflection or experience. As her footprints crossing and recrossing one
another have made a labyrinth in the mire, so may her track in life have
involved itself in an intricate and unravellable tangle.
The postern-gate of the Hospital for Foundling Children opens, and a
young woman comes out. The lady stands aside, observes closely, sees
that the gate is quietly closed again from within, and follows the young
woman.
Two or three streets have been traversed in silence before she, following
close behind the object of her attention, stretches out her hand and
touches her.
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