"Oh! I know," Alice exclaimed, "Frank told me the story. She had told him about a woman who had fallen down at her door years ago, and how she had brought up the child. But O uncle!" she said pitifully, "I have a sad thing to tell you. Frank said that he was such a nice boy, so clever and good. Frank used to go and help him with his books, and he can read Latin and all sorts of things; but, uncle, he met with an accident when he was little, and he is a cripple." For a minute Captain Bayley was silent. "It is part of my punishment, dear," he said at last, "God's will be done. However, cripple or not, I am thankful to find that, from what you say, he is a boy whom I can own without shame, for the thought has troubled me always, that, should Ella's son be alive, he might have grown up a companion of thieves, a wandering vagabond. Thank God, indeed, it is not so! I am glad you told me, Alice. Now, let me see this good woman who has been a mother to him." Mrs. Holl was again called in, and was asked to sit down. "The question you wished to ask me," Captain Bayley said, "was, I suppose, whether I could give you any clue as to who was the woman you took in, and whose child you adopted? She was my daughter." "Lor', sir!" Mrs. Holl exclaimed, "who would have thought such a thing?" "Who, indeed," Captain Bayley repeated; "but so it was. For years I sought for her in vain, and had long since given up all hope of ever hearing of her. Have you got the seal with you?" After some search Mrs. Holl produced from the corner of her capacious pocket the seal, carefully wrapped up in paper. "That is it," Captain Bayley said, with a sigh. "Alice, go to my desk, open the inner compartment, and there you will see the fellow to it." Alice did as he requested. "There, you see, Doctor, they are exactly alike. They were both made at the same time, soon after I returned from India, and now, Mrs. Holl, please tell us the whole story as I understand you told it to my nephew." Mrs. Holl repeated the story in nearly the same words that she had used to Frank. "God bless you!" Captain Bayley said, when she finished. "No words can tell how grateful I am to you, or how deeply I am moved at the thought of the kindness which you and your husband, strangers as you were to her, showed to my poor girl. I hope you will not mind sparing him to me now; your claims are far greater than mine, but you have other children, while I, with the exception of my ward here, am alone in the world." "Lor', sir," Mrs. Holl said, wiping her eyes with her apron, "of course we will spare him. We shall miss him sorely, for he has indeed been a comfort and a blessing to us; but it is for his good, and you won't mind his coming to see us sometimes."