She came and stood before him, one foot a little advanced, several dolls clutched tightly under one arm, and her bonnet swinging in the other hand.  She looked up at him fearlessly, questioningly, but with no sign of friendliness.  He saw and felt her mother in all her being, in her eyes and hair, in the lines of her soft little face, and indefinably in her way of standing or moving.  He was seized with a sudden fear that the mother watched him secretly out of the child’s eyes, and with the child’s lips might call to him accusingly, with what wild cries of anguish and reproach he dared not guess.  He strove to say something to her, but his lips were dry, and he made only some half-articulate sound, trying to force a smile of assurance.

Then the child spoke, her serious, questioning eyes upon him unwaveringly.

“Are you a damned Mormon?”

It broke the spell of awe that had lain upon him, so that he felt for the moment only a pious horror of her speech.  He called Christina to take charge of her, and Martha, the second wife, to put away her little bundle of clothing, and Tom Potwin to fetch water for her bath.  He himself went to be alone where he could think what must be done for her.  From an entry in the little Bible, written in letters that seemed to shout to him the accusation of his crime, he had found that she must now be five years old.  It was plainly time that he should begin to supply her very apparent need of religious instruction.

When she had become a little used to her surroundings later in the day, he sought to beguile her to this end, beginning diplomatically with other matters.

“Come, tell me your name, dear.”

She allowed her attention to be diverted from her largest doll.

“My name is Prudence—­” She hesitated.

“Prudence—­what?”

“I—­I lost my mind of it.”  She looked at him hopefully, to be prompted.

“Prudence Rae.”

She repeated the name, doubtingly, “Prudence Rae?”

“Yes—­remember now—­Prudence Rae.  You are my little girl—­Prudence Rae.”

“But you’re not my really papa—­he’s went far off—­oh, ten ninety miles far!”

“No, Prudence—­God is your Father in heaven, and I am your father on earth—­”

“But not my papa!”

“Listen, Prudence—­do you know what you are?”

The puzzled look she had worn fled instantly from her face.

“I’m a generation of vipers.”

She made the announcement with a palpable ring of elation in her tones, looking at him proudly, and as if waiting to hear expressions of astonishment and delight.

“Child, child, who has told you such things?  You are not that!”

She retorted, indignantly now, the lines drawing about her eyes in signal of near-by tears: 

“I am a generation of vipers—­the Bishop said I was—­he told that other mamma, and I am it!”