It's the first child I've ever adopted," said Frank
"and upon my word, I can't say whether you have to give him a new name or
not. In fact, if I'd thought of this affair of a name, I'd never have
adopted him. It's the greatest part of the burden, and if his father will
only come for him, I'll give him up without a murmur."
In the interval that followed the proposal of this alarming difficulty,
and while he sat and waited vaguely for whatever should be going to happen
next, Frank was not able to repress a sense of personal resentment towards
the little vagrant sleeping so carelessly there, though at the bottom of
his heart there was all imaginable tenderness for him. In the fantastic
character which, to his weariness, the day's pleasure took on, it seemed
an extraordinary unkindness of fate that this lost child should have been
kept in reserve for him after all the rest; and he had so small
consciousness of bestowing shelter and charity, and so profound a feeling
of having himself been turned out of house and home by some surprising and
potent agency, that if the lost child had been a regiment of Fenians
billeted upon him, it could not have oppressed him more.
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