“Years ago I had a sister whom I loved very dearly.  She was much older than I and took the place of my mother when I lost her.  I lived with this sister, after her marriage, until I was eighteen years of age, and grew to love the little daughter who came to her when I was a boy of ten, with a tenderness which I have no words to express.  At the age of eighteen, an East India merchant, who dealt in spices, coffee, tea, etc., and who, having no children of his own, had made a kind of protege of me, proposed that I come to him and learn his business.  His partner in the East had recently died; he was about to go abroad to take his place and suggested that this would give me a fine start in life.  It was too good an opportunity to be slighted, and I eagerly accepted it.  Years passed; my sister and her husband both died—­their daughter married and settled in a thriving town, not far from San Francisco, Cal.  Then, after a time, word came that there was another little girl in the daughter’s home, and she wrote begging me to come back to her, if only for a visit, for I was now her only living relative and her lonely heart was hungry for me.  I immediately made plans to do so; but my partner—­who formerly had been my employer—­was suddenly taken away and I was obliged to give up the trip.  Nearly a year later my niece wrote very hurriedly, telling me that her husband had obtained a fine position in Chicago, that they had sold their home and were on the point of leaving for that city, but she would send me their address when they were settled.  That was the last I ever heard from her, although I wrote numberless letters of inquiry to their former place of residence and also to Chicago.  Complications in business made it impossible for me to come to the United States to institute a personal search, until about five years ago, and I have spent these years looking for the dear girl who so strangely disappeared after leaving her California home.  I have been in nearly every large city in the land, and in each have advertised extensively, but all to no purpose.  A month ago I came to Boston for the second time, and have liked the place so well I am loath to leave it.  While looking at the transformation scene over yonder, I was attracted by your remarkable resemblance to my sister, as she was at your age, and could not refrain from speaking to you, hoping that I might hear a familiar name.  Miss Wild, can you tell me just when this accident, which deprived you of your parents, occurred?”

Jennie gave him the date of the month and the year, and her companion’s face changed as he heard it.

“That was the same month and the year that my niece left California to go to Chicago,” he said.  “I believe—­I wonder—­By the way, Miss Wild”—­with a sudden start—­“was there nothing about you when that woman found you, by which you could have been identified?”

“Oh, yes!  I never thought!” panted Jennie, as her trembling hands flew to her throat.