midnight
Can there be any harmony between mother and child , must not suspicion and mistrust perpetually rankle in their bosoms , while this imposture is believed ? Yet how to detect the fraud -- Some clue must be discernible ; perseverance must light on it at last . The agent in this sordid iniquity must be human ; must be influenced by the ordinary motives ; must be capable of remorse or of error ; must have moments of repentance or of negligence . My mind was particularly full of this subject in a midnight ramble which I took just before I left Baltimore . Something -- I know not what -- recalled to my mind a conversation which I had with the poor washwoman at Wilmington . Miss Jessup , whom you well know by my report , passed through Wilmington just as I left the sick woman 's house , and stopped a moment just to give me a `` How d'ye '' and to drop some railleries founded on my visits to Miss Secker , a single and solitary lady . On reaching Philadelphia , she amused herself with perplexing Jane by jesting exaggerations on the same subject , in a way that seemed to argue somewhat of malignity ; yet I thought nothing of it at the time .