father’s friends, whom I recollected, but met with no response during the day.  All this strange indifference was incomprehensible to me.  It was, in part, explained to my mind on the next morning, when one of the persons to whom I had written called, and was shown up into our parlor by request.  There was a coldness and reserve about him, combined with a too evident suspicion that it was not all as I had said.  That my father was not Mr. Ballantine, nor I his daughter—­but both, in fact, impostors!  And certain it is that the white-headed imbecile old man bore but little resemblance to the fine, manly, robust form, which my father presented three years before.  The visitor questioned and cross-questioned me; and failed not to hint at what seemed to him discrepancies, and even impossibilities in my story.  I felt indignant at this; at the same time my heart sank at the suddenly flashing conviction that, after all our sufferings and long weary exile from our home, we should find ourselves but strangers in the land of our birth—­be even repulsed from our own homestead.

“Our visitor retired after an interview of about half an hour, giving me to understand pretty plainly that he thought both my father and myself impostors.  His departure left me faint and sick at heart.  But from this state I aroused myself, after a while, and determined to go and see Mr. Paralette at once.  A servant called a carriage, and I ordered the driver to take me to the store of Ballantine & Paralette.

“‘There is no such firm now, madam,’ he said; ’Mr. Ballantine was lost at sea some years ago.  It is Paralette & Co. now.’

“‘Drive me there, then,’ I said, in a choking voice.

“In a few minutes the carriage stopped at the place I had designated, and I entered the store formerly kept by my father.  Though I had been absent for eight years, yet every thing looked familiar, and nothing more familiar than the face of Mr. Paralette, my father’s partner.  I advanced to meet him with a quick step; but his look of unrecognition, and the instant remembrance that he had not attended to my note, and moreover that it had been plainly hinted to me that I was an impostor, made me hesitate, and my whole manner to become confused.

“‘Eugenia Ballantine is my name,’ said I, in a quivering voice.  ’I dropped you a note yesterday, informing you that my father and I had returned to the city.’

“He looked at me a moment with a calm, severe, scrutinizing gaze, and then said—­

“’Yes, I received your note, and have this moment seen Mr.—­, who called upon you.  And he corroborates the instant suspicion I had that your story could not be correct.  He tells me that the man whom you call your father resembles Moses a great deal more than he does the late Mr. Ballantine.  So you see, madam, that your story won’t go for any thing here.’