“Oh, the other appeared to be teething too; but, as you say, I think it is most like she did see the difference, but being out of the country I heard nothing about it.”

“When did this happen?” asked Brandon.

“Thirty-four years ago and more we sailed from London Docks for Sydney,” said Mrs. Peck.

“Where did you lodge in London when this affair took place?”

“At a lodging-house in ----- Street, near the Docks; I think the number
was 39, but I am not quite sure.”

“Can you tell me the name of the ship the mother of the present proprietor of Cross Hall went to America in?” asked Brandon.

“No, but we sailed, as I told you, on the 14th May, 18-, in the ‘Lysander,’ and the other ship was to sail for New York on the next day.”

“Are you sure this woman was going to America?”

“Yes, for the landlady told us so, and I could see when we was in her room that she was making preparations for a voyage.  I think there’s no doubt of that.”

“Was there no mark on the child’s clothes? no name on the boxes you must have seen when you were exchanging the two children?” asked Brandon.

“Not as I recollect of, nor mother either, for we have sometimes talked over it and wondered about it.  Our time was so short that we took no notice of such things.”

“And how did you two precious colonists like Sydney?” asked Brandon.

“Oh, well enough.  We held our heads high there, for we was free people, you know.”

“Though you had both done what you deserved hanging for,” said Brandon, under his breath.  “Where did Phillips meet with you and your daughter?—­for I suppose Mrs. Phillips is your daughter:  though your first experiment in child-stealing had been so successful, it might have tempted you to another of the same kind.”

“Oh, Betsy is my daughter, and an ungrateful one she is.  We met with Phillips in Melbourne, just when we came first to Port Philip.  Peck had run through the 1,500 pounds that we got from Cross Hall, and we was hard up and obliged to leave Sydney under a cloud; but Peck, he said, such a handsome face as she had should be a fortune to us.  It’s been a fortune to herself; but as for me, she never thinks of me.  And there’s Frank, when I wrote to him after I had read in an old newspaper at the diggings that he had come into the estate, and asked him for a little help, he never condescended to send me an answer or to take the least notice of me that has done so much for him.  If it had not been for me, where would he have been now?  His mother was a poor woman.  If you’d seen the poor old nightgown I took off of him—­and there has he been educated like a gentleman, and getting Cross Hall, and being a member of Parliament too, and never to take trouble to write me a line or to send me a penny.  I said I’d be revenged on him, and so I shall.”

“Well, Mrs. Peck,” said Brandon, “I will just write down the particulars of this curious story, and you will sign it if you think I have put them down correctly.”  So with clearness and brevity Brandon sketched the facts, if facts they were, which Mrs. Peck had narrated, and then he read what he had written.