I have not heard from him since.  He is a good-hearted man, but of a restless, roving disposition, with no domestic tastes.  Why he should suddenly cease to provide for my little cousin—­if he has done so—­or if his omission means only some temporary disaster to himself or his fortunes, I do not know.  My anxiety was more for the poor boy’s sake than for myself, for as long as I live I can provide for him.”  She said this without the least display of emotion, and with the same mature air of also repressing any emotion on the part of Randolph.  But for her size and girlish figure, but for the dripping tangles of her hair and her soft eyes, he would have believed he was talking to a hard, middle-aged matron.

“Then you—­he—­has no friends here?” asked Randolph.

“No.  We are all from Callao, where Bobby was born.  My uncle was a merchant there, who came here lately to establish an agency.  We lived with him in Sutter Street—­where you remember I was so hateful to you,” she interpolated, with a mischievous smile—­“until his enterprise failed and he was obliged to return; but I stayed here with Bobby, that he might be educated in his father’s own tongue.  It was unfortunate, perhaps,” she said, with a little knitting of her pretty brows, “that the remittances ceased and uncle left about the same time; but, like you, I was lucky, and I managed to get a place in the Emporium.”

“The Emporium!” repeated Randolph in surprise.  It was a popular “magasin of fashion” in Montgomery Street.  To connect this refined girl with its garish display and vulgar attendants seemed impossible.

“The Emporium,” reiterated Miss Avondale simply.  “You see, we used to dress a good deal in Callao and had the Paris fashions, and that experience was of great service to me.  I am now at the head of what they call the ‘mantle department,’ if you please, and am looked up to as an authority.”  She made him a mischievous bow, which had the effect of causing a trickle from the umbrella to fall across his budding mustache, and another down her own straight little nose—­a diversion that made them laugh together, although Randolph secretly felt that the young girl’s quiet heroism was making his own trials appear ridiculous.  But her allusion to Callao and the boy’s name had again excited his fancy and revived his romantic dream of their common benefactor.  As soon as they could get a more perfect shelter and furl the umbrella, he plunged into the full story of the mysterious portmanteau and its missing owner, with the strange discovery that he had made of the similarity of the two handwritings.  The young lady listened intently, eagerly, checking herself with what might have been a half smile at his enthusiasm.

“I remember the banker’s letter, certainly,” she said, “and Captain Dornton—­that was the name of Bobby’s father—­asked me to sign my name in the body of it where he had also written it with my address.  But the likeness of the handwriting to your slip of paper may be only a fancied one.  Have you shown it to any one,” she said quickly—­“I mean,” she corrected herself as quickly, “any one who is an expert?”