“Yes, yes,—thank you, Mrs. Myers; this lady has been sick, and we,—yes, we are both anxious to find some trace of the child lost so long ago: but I think it doubtful if we do,—yes, very doubtful. Come, Edith, we may as well go.” But Edith did not move. She must know something more, and she said: “Have you no idea where this Mary Stover lived? Had she no friends who could tell me about her?” “None as I knows on. I ain’t seen or ’earn of her better’n eighteen year. Mebbe the perlice could worrit her out for you.” Edith had not thought of that, and hurried her husband into the street, and insisted upon going at once to the head of the police. But the colonel demurred. If they could proceed quietly, he would rather do so, he said, and they would not call in the aid of the police until they had exhausted every means in their power. And they did exhaust every means; they inquired everywhere, and hunted up every family of Stovers in the city, and went to the hospital again, and went to Mrs. Myers to see if she could not think of something forgotten when they were there before. But all was of no avail. Nobody had ever heard of Mary Stover, and Edith’s heart was heavy as lead when at last the case was given to the police, who had little hope of success. Worn out, disappointed, and discouraged, Edith took her bed at the hotel where they were stopping, while the colonel, who was not so very much aggrieved at the failure of the search, thought to please and interest her by making some inquiries with regard to _Gertie Westbrooke_, about whose antecedents there was so much doubt and mystery. To trace her history seemed far easier than to trace the mythical Mary Stover, and he went first to the company where her annuity was payable. In answer to his inquiries as to whether they could give him any information with regard to the family, he was told that quite recently a Mrs. William Westbrooke had done some business with them in the way of a deposit. She was a widow, they said, and had come from Florence, where she had lived for many years. It was the same name, possibly the same family,—he could inquire; they could give him the lady’s address. This he reported to Edith, who roused herself to some interest in the matter after being assured that no parent or guardian could take Gertie from them after all these years. “If I thought they could I would not try to find them, for I can’t give Gertie up,” she said; while her husband felt that _he_ would be almost as loath to part with Gertie as Edith herself. And so with more real interest now than he had felt when searching for Mary Stover, he drove with Edith one day to the handsome lodgings occupied by Mrs. William Westbrooke, recently from Florence. She was a little, pale, sandy-haired woman, of forty or thereabouts, very much dressed, and having in her manner something haughty and supercilious as she received the strangers, and, without requesting them to be seated, asked what she could do for them.