“I have the baby pins I wore with me.  Jessica asked me to wear them to-day,” replied Mabel, who looked like a person just awakened from a deep sleep.  She had not yet reached a full comprehension of what it all meant.

“Let me see them,” cried Mrs. Allison.

Mabel mechanically detached one of the little gold pins from her collar and handed it to Mrs. Allison, who examined it closely for a moment, then dropping it with a little cry, again clasped Mabel in her arms.

“They are the pins I had specially made and engraved for you,” she said.  “There is no longer any doubt.  You are my lost child.”

At these words a light of complete understanding seemed to dawn upon Mabel, and with a cry of rapture she wound her arms about her mother’s neck.

It was a joyful, though rather a trying moment for the four chums, who were seized with a hysterical desire to laugh and cry in the same breath.  Grace made a slight motion toward the door, which her friends were not slow to comprehend.  It was her intention to slip quietly away and leave the mother and daughter alone with their new-found happiness.

Before she could put her plan into execution, however, Mrs. Allison divined her intention and turning quickly toward her, said, “Don’t go, Grace.  I feel as though you girls belonged to me, too.  Besides, you have not heard my part of this story yet.”

“Perhaps you are hardly strong enough to tell us after so much excitement,” deprecated Grace.

“My dear, I feel as though I had just begun to live,” answered Mrs. Allison.  “The past has been one long dreary blank.  If you only knew the years of agony I have passed through.  When you hear my story you will understand why this reunion is little short of miraculous.

“My home is in Denver.  Mabel was born there,” continued Mrs. Allison.  “Fourteen years ago this summer my husband and I decided to spend the summer in Europe, taking with us our baby daughter, Mabel, and her nurse.

“On the morning that we were to sail, circumstances arose that made it necessary for my husband and myself to be in New York until almost sailing time.  He therefore sent the nurse, a French woman, who was thoroughly familiar with the city, on ahead to the vessel, with Mabel in her care.  We had barely time to catch the boat and were met by the nurse, who said that she had left Mabel asleep in one of the state rooms engaged for us.  It was not until we had put out to sea that we discovered that Mabel was missing, and a thorough search of the ship was at once made.  The nurse persisted in her statement that Mabel went aboard with her.  Every nook and cranny of the ship was overhauled, but my child could not be found, and the supposition was that she had in some way fallen overboard.

“I was distracted with grief, and nearly lost my reason, and when we reached the other side I passed into a long illness.  It was many weeks before I returned to consciousness of my affairs, and the terrible realization that my baby was gone forever.  I felt as though I could not face the future without her.  I had scarcely recovered from the first shock attending my great loss, when my husband contracted typhoid fever and died after an illness of five weeks.