“The people who left this child,” she exclaimed, “do not intend to lose her!  They know where she is, and they will keep a watch upon her, and when they get a chance they will take her.  I, too, will keep a watch upon her, and when they come for her I shall see them.”

Her use of words soon showed Corinne to be of English parentage, and it was generally supposed that she had been stolen from some travellers, and had been used at the station as a means of giving time to the nurse to get away with the other child.

In accord with her resolution, the grief-stricken lady put Corinne in the charge of a trusty woman, and, moreover, scarcely ever allowed her to be out of her sight.

It was suggested that advertisement be made for the parents of a child marked with E.G. and J.P.  But to this the lady decidedly objected.

“If her parents find her,” she said, “they will take her away; and I want to keep her till the thieves come for her.  I have lost my child, and as this one is the only clue I shall ever have to her, I intend to keep it.  When I have found my child, it will be time enough to restore this one.”

Thus selfish is maternal love.

Pomona bore up better under the loss than did Jonas.  Neither of them gave up the search for a day; but Jonas, haggard and worn, wandered aimlessly about the city, visiting every place into which he imagined a child might have wandered, or might have been taken, searching even to the crypt in the Guildhall and the Tower of London.  Pomona’s mind worked quite as actively as her husband’s body.  She took great care of “Little Kensington,” as she called the strange child from the place where she had been found; and therefore could not go about as Jonas did.  After days and nights of ceaseless supposition, she had come to the conclusion that Corinne had been stolen by opera singers.

“I suppose you never knew it,” she said to us, “for I took pains not to let it disturb you, but that child has notes in her voice about two stories higher than any operer prymer donner that I ever heard, an’ I’ve heard lots of ’em, for I used to go into the top gallery of the operer as often as into the theayter; an’ if any operer singer ever heard them high notes of Corinne’s,—­an’ there was times when she’d let ’em out without the least bit of a notice,—­it’s them that’s took her.”

“But, my poor Pomona,” said Euphemia, “you don’t suppose that little child could be of any use to an opera singer; at least, not for years and years.”

“Oh, yes, ma’am,” replied Pomona; “she was none too little.  Sopranners is like mocking-birds; they’ve got to be took young.”

No arguments could shake Pomona’s belief in this theory.  And she daily lamented the fact that there was no opera in London at that time that she might go to the performances, and see if there was any one on the stage who looked mean enough to steal a child.

“If she was there,” said Pomona, “I’d know it.  She’d feel the scorn of a mother’s eye on her, an’ her guilty heart would make her forget her part.”