Miss Mulock's Romance

1881

It was "John Halifax" published after she was thirty years old, that brought her fame, and made the task of earning her daily bread a little less arduous. Seven years later she was awarded a pension of three hundred dollars a year. She was nearly forty when she was married. In 1865 Captain George Lillie Craik, an officer in the English army, who had been in the Crimea, met Miss Mulock, and although some years her junior, addressed her and succeeded in winning her hand.

They proved most congenial companions, and their married life was all they could wish, without one exception, the woman whose love for children amounted almost to a passion, who wrote 'Philip, My King,' was denied the happiness of feeling baby fingers upon her cheek or of ever hearing herself called mother. This was a severe sorrow; but even this pain has been partly assuaged.

Strangely enough, one dark rainy night, while she and her husband were speaking of children and of the joy and brightness they bring to so many dwellings, there came a loud bell ring at the and then a furious knocking. On opening the door, lying upon the sill they found a basket enclosed in heavy wrappings. When they were removed they discovered a lovely little baby only a few hours old. The child was wrapped in one roll after another of India muslin, and on its breast was pinned a note begging Mrs. Craik to be kind to the little waif thus brought to her door, and assuring her that no mean blood flowed in its veins. Tenderly she lifted the little thing in her arms, and her heart opened as warmly to take in the poor little deserted creature.

They called the child Dorothea, God-given, and she became their adopted daughter, as tenderly cherished and as passionately loved as though she had been their own.