It was the colonel who did the talking this time, while Edith listened in a preoccupied kind of way, which, nevertheless, did not prevent her from hearing all that was said. “We are Americans,” the colonel began, “and we have a young girl in our family of whose antecedents we would learn something. As you have the same name, and bank at the same firm where her annuity of forty pounds a year is paid, it occurred to me to inquire if you have ever heard of a girl called Gertie, or Gertrude Westbrooke, nineteen or twenty years old.” “Gertie!—Gertrude!” Mrs. Westbrooke said. “I did know a child by that name years ago; but tell me, please, how she came to be in America living with you?” It was Edith who talked now, and who told rapidly all she knew of Gertie Westbrooke and her so-called mother, Mrs. Rogers. “Is it the same? Do you think it the same?” she asked; and Mrs. Westbrooke replied: “I think it the same; yes.” “Who is she then? Are _you_ her step-mother?” Edith asked; and, with a frown on her wizened little face, the lady replied: “No, she is nothing to me. She was adopted by my husband’s first wife just after the loss of her baby, and, as I understood, at the instigation of her nurse, who must have been this Mrs. Rogers. The first Mrs. Westbrooke was greatly attached to the child, and when she died she settled upon it forty pounds a year, and gave it expressly to the care of her maid. “About a year after her death Mr. Westbrooke married me, and took me to his home in London. I did not like children, and this one was in my way, and as my husband did not care for it either, we gave it at last to the nurse, who took it to keep for her own. My first child was born soon after, and the next year we went to Florence, where my husband died, and where I have lived until within the last few months. Of Gertie I have never heard since. I was told that the nurse, Mary, was married and living comfortably; but from what you say I have no doubt that the young lady in question is the girl, and am glad she has fallen into so good hands. She was very pretty, with great blue eyes and bright auburn hair——” “What was the name of the nurse?” Edith asked, and the lady replied: “I don’t remember whom she married, but dare say it was Rogers. My housekeeper will know; she saw her married. Her maiden name was Stover,—_Mary Stover_.” “_Mary Stover!_” and Edith started to her feet as quickly as if a heavy blow had smitten her. “Mary Stover,—tell me if you know where the child came from at first, who were her parents, and how came Mrs. Westbrooke by her?” “I do not know as she had any parents, unless it were Mary Stover herself. I always suspected her of being the real mother, she was so attached to the child and so mysterious about it. She brought it to Mrs. Westbrooke from some Foundling Hospital, I believe, where her sister Anne was nurse.”