“My friend, I have a surprise for you. You have sought, at my request, for my great-niece, Lally Bird, and failed to find her, even with a detective officer to assist you. I am neither lawyer nor detective, but I am more clever than you both. _I_ have found my niece, and here she is. Lally, come nearer. Mr. Harris, this is Lally Bird, the daughter of my niece Clara Percy.” Lally bowed. Mr. Harris stared at the girl in surprise. “I beg your pardon, Mrs. Wroat,” he exclaimed, “but your great-niece, Lally Bird, is dead. Our detective discovered the facts some weeks ago, but I feared to communicate them in your present state of health. I cannot, however, permit you to be imposed upon by a possible adventuress. Miss Lally Bird committed suicide last July. She sprang from London Bridge, and struck upon a passing boat, killing her instantly. I have a newspaper in my pocket--” “Never mind your paper,” interrupted Mrs. Wroat vivaciously. “Look at the girl. Has she not my black eyes? Can you not remember when I had hair like hers, and that dear olive skin? You are too suspicious, my friend. Where do you suppose I found her? Why, down at Blight’s, at Canterbury. She was governess to the Blight children. Now sit down, and I’ll tell you the whole story. Stay, I am tired, and Lally will tell it. Question her, and be convinced of the truth of my assertions. Sit down, Lally, dear, and tell Mr. Harris all about yourself.” Lally sat down near her great-aunt. She was a little frightened under the searching gaze of the lawyer, but her clear honest eyes met his unflinchingly, and he read in the sad and innocent face how deeply he had wronged her in deeming her a “possible adventuress.” He asked her a few questions in a quiet, careless manner, referring to a note-book which he produced and then his professional spirit stirring itself, he cross-questioned her as if she had been a witness in court whose evidence he was trying to shake, and upon whose impeachment the success of his cause depended. He asked her her name, age, and date of her birth, and applied the same questions in regard to each of her deceased parents. He demanded where she had been educated, how she had maintained herself after her father’s death, and finally said, in a tone that betrayed how important the question and its answer was to the establishment of the girl’s claims: “I have discovered--Miss Bird--assuming that you are Miss Bird--that you left your situation as music-teacher, or, to be more exact, that the school in which you were engaged closed, and you were thrown out of a situation, in the spring of this year. Where did you spend the months that passed between last May and this present month of September? And how, I may as well ask here, did your handkerchief happen to be found upon the water at the precise moment when that poor girl who was drowned, and who was supposed to be Lally Bird, was picked up?”