As she stepped into her dressing room, her eye fell upon the foreign trunk, which had come with her, and with the contents of which she was familiar.  They had been kept intact by Mrs. Crawford, who hoped that by them Jerrie might some day be identified.  The girl went now to the old trunk, and, lifting the heavy lid, took out the articles one by one with a very different feeling from what she had ever experienced before when handling them.  The alpaca dress came first, and she examined it carefully.  It was coarse, and plain, and old-fashioned, and she felt intuitively that a servant had worn it and not she whose pale, refined face seemed almost to touch hers as she knelt beside the box.  The cloak and shawl, in which she had been wrapped, were inspected next, and on these Jerrie’s tears fell like rain, while there was in her heart an indefinable feeling of pity for the woman who had resolutely put away the covering from herself to save a life which was no part of her own.

‘Oh, Mah-nee,’ she sobbed, laying her face upon the rough, coarse garments, ’I am not disloyal to you in trying to believe that you were not my mother, and could you come back to me, Mah-nee, whoever you are, I’d be to you so loving and true.  Tell me, Mah-nee, who I am; give me some sign that what comes to me so often of that far-off land is true.  There was another face than yours, which kissed me fondly, and other hands, dead now, as are the dear old hands which shielded me from the cold that awful night, have caressed me lovingly.’

But to this appeal there came no response, and Jerrie would have been frightened if there had.  The shawl, the cloak, the dress were as silent and motionless as she to whom they had belonged; and Jerrie folded them reverently, kissing each one as she did so; then she took out the carpet-bag, which had once held her tiny body.  She always laughed when she looked at this and tried to imagine herself in it, and she did so now as she held it up and said: 

’I could not much more than get my two feet in you now, old bag; but you did me good service once, and I respect you, although I have outgrown you.’

Her own clothes came next—­the little dresses, which showed a mother’s love and care; the handkerchief, marked ‘J;’ the aprons, and the picture book with which she had played, and from which it seemed to her she had learned the alphabet, standing by that cushioned chair before the tall white stove.  There was only the fine towel left of the clothing, and Jerrie gazed along and thoughtfully at the letter ‘M,’ embroidered with flowers in the corners.

‘Marguerite begins with M,’ she said, ’and Gretchen’s name was Marguerite.  Oh, if it were Gretchen who worked this letter, then I can touch what her hands have touched—­the little dimpled hands in the picture,’ and she kissed the ‘M’ as fervently as if it had been Gretchen’s lips and Gretchen were her mother.