“Where did they go when they left here?”

But the attendant could not tell.  Nor did any one in the institution know.  The daughter had never told her place of residence.

Excited beyond measure, Perkins returned to Boston, and went to see Berlaps.  From him he could learn nothing.  It was two months or so since she had been there for work.  Michael was then referred to; he knew nothing, but he had a suspicion that Mrs. Gaston got work for her.

“Mrs Gaston!” exclaimed Perkins, with a look of astonishment.  “Who is Mrs. Gaston?”

“She is one of our seamstresses,” replied Berlaps.

“Where does she live?”

The direction was given, and the young man hurried to the place.  But the bird had flown.  Five or six days before, she had gone away in a carriage with a young lady who had been living with her, so it was said, and no one could tell what had become of her or her children.

Confused, perplexed, anxious, and excited, Perkins turned away and walked slowly home, to give himself time to reflect.  His first fear was that Eugenia and her father, for he had now no doubt of their being the real actors in this drama, had really departed for New Orleans.  The name of Mrs. Gaston, as being in association with the young woman calling herself Lizzy Glenn, expelled from his mind every doubt.  That was the name of the friend in Troy with whom Eugenia had lived while there.  It was some years since he had visited or heard particularly from Troy, and therefore this was the first intimation he had that Mrs. Gaston had removed form there, or that her situation had become so desperate as the fact of her working for Berlaps would indicate.

CHAPTER XII.

Perkins finds in Lizzy Glenn his long lost Eugenia.

After Eugenia Ballantine, for she it really was, had removed to the humble abode of Mrs. Gaston, her mind was comparatively more at ease than it yet had been.  In the tenderly manifested affection of one who had been a mother to her in former, happier years, she found something upon which to lean her bruised and wearied spirits.  Thus far, she had been compelled to bear up alone—­now there was an ear open to her, and her overburdened heart found relief in sympathy.  There was a bosom upon which she could lean her aching head, and find a brief but blessed repose.  Toward the end of January, her father’s symptoms changed rapidly, indicating one day more alarming features than ever, and the next presenting an encouraging aspect.  The consequence was, that the mind of Eugenia became greatly agitated.  Every day she repaired to the Asylum, with a heart trembling between hope and fear, to return sometimes with feelings of elation, and sometimes deeply depressed.