In a trice she had unclasped the string of amber beads which she always wore inside her clothing, and laid them in his hand.

The man grew very white as he saw them, turned the curious clasp over and read the initials engraven there.  He did not speak for a full minute.  He was evidently deeply moved, and Jennie sat watching him with bated breath and tensely clasped hands.

“My dear,” he finally said, “this is the ‘open sesame’ to everything.  This and your remarkable resemblance to my sister, together with the date you have given me, prove to me beyond the shadow of a doubt that you are the daughter of my niece.”

“O-h!” breathed Jennie, with tremulous eagerness.

“The initials ‘A.  A. to M. A. J.,’ on the clasp, stand for ’Alfred Arnold to Mildred Arnold Jennison,’” the gentleman continued.  “I am Alfred Arnold.  When my niece wrote me of the birth of her little daughter, and that she had named her ‘Mildred’ for her mother, and ‘Arnold,’ for me, I bought this string of amber in Calcutta, had the initials engraved on the clasp and sent it to the tiny stranger.”

“Then—­then I am—­you are—­” began Jennie, falteringly.

“You are my grandniece—­I am your great-uncle.  My child, do you think you will care to own the relationship?”

But the girl was, for the moment, beyond the power of speech.

To have the harassing mystery of her life solved at last; to learn something definite regarding her family, even though no one remained to claim her save this distant relative, yet to find in him a cultured gentleman, and reaching out to her with tender yearning, as the only link with his past—­was more than she could bear with composure.  To have tried to speak just then would have precipitated a burst of tears and she “wouldn’t cry in public.”

So she could only throw out an impulsive, trembling hand to him and smile faintly into the grave, kind face beside her.

He folded it within his own and patted it soothingly with a fatherly air.

“Little girl, little girl!” he said, huskily, but tenderly, “I can hardly believe it!  I was becoming discouraged in my quest; but I begin to think now that life is worth living, even though the dear one I sought is gone and I shall never see her again in this life.”

“My mother! my father—­have you their—­” but Jennie was obliged to stop again because of the refractory lump in her throat.

“Yes, I have numerous photographs of them all,” Mr. Arnold replied, and instinctively comprehending her thought.  “I even have one of baby Mildred,” he added, with a smile, “taken when she was six months old.  Your mother’s maiden name was Pauline West, and I have some beautiful letters from her that you will love to read some day.”

“Do I look like her at all?” queried Jennie, who was beginning to forget herself and grow more composed as she drank in these interesting facts.