Spirit Of Jefferson

RETURN OF MATERNAL AFFECTION.

The mother of the infant child left at Capt. A. Taylor's door, in Keezletown, in this county, about Christmas, in the year 1862, has just come forward, we learn, to claim the foundling. At the time of its occurrence an air of mystery surrounded this seemingly cruel case of abandonment of a tender infant by its mother. She had been staying, for a short time, at one of the Hotels in Harrisonburg, was known to be from the town of Martinsburg or county of Berkeley, and was represented as a woman of some intelligence as well as personal attractions. Capt. Taylor had been in the Confederate Army, and was stationed with other forces from Rockingham, in the region of country where the mother resided. Capt. T. was a married man, but was known, it seems, by the mother of this infant, to be childless. Hence, her selection of Capt. T.'s door-sill as the proper place for the unfortunate little creature who was ushered into life under such mysterious circumstances. The child was gladly welcomed to its new home by Capt. and Mrs. Taylor, and has been receiving every attention from its foster parents. Of course, an attachment for the child has been created in the mind of its foster-mother, who, having no children of her own, naturally clings to it with the fondness of a natural mother. It seems, however, that its apparently unnatural mother has felt the stirrings of a mother's affection for her offspring, and has come to claim its possession. She states, we learn, that the father of the child, who was from Rockingham, was killed during the war; that she was married since she left here in 1862, or 1863, and that her husband is now dead, having left her, however, in possession of sufficient means to take care of her child. What has been done in the premises we have not learned; but, of course, the mother of the child, notwithstanding her unnatural conduct, whilst possibly suffering remorse of conscience for her misdeeds, has the best right to the little stranger whose existence is attributable to the demoralization produced by the war.

Rockingham Register.