Thanking him or the information, Teddy went drearily on his way, more hopelessly convinced than ever that Giovanni had deliberately stolen the child, and absconded with her. "Well," muttered he, "all I've got to do now is to tell the master, and take what I'll get. If he finds the little-no: she's none of that, nor ever was-if he finds her, and takes her home to them that lost her, I'll be content, if it's to prison, or to sweeping the streets, or to be a slave in the South, he sends me." Arrived at the office, Teddy faithfully performed his morning duties, and then seated himself to wait for Mr. Barlow, who was again occupying Mr. Burroughs's office during that gentleman's absence in the West. While arranging upon his table some papers he was to copy, Teddy suddenly remembered that other morning, now nearly a year ago, when Mr. Burroughs had laid upon his very table the picture and advertisement of the lost child; and all the months of guilty hesitation and concealment that since had passed seemed to roll back upon the boy's heart, crushing it into the very dust. He threw down the pen he had just taken up, and laid his head upon his folded arms, groaning aloud,-- "Oh! if I had told him then! if I had just told him that morning!" The door of the office opened quickly; and Mr. Barlow, a grave and reserved young man, who had never taken much notice of Teddy, entered, and, as he passed to the inner room, glanced with some curiosity at the boy, whose emotion was not to be quite concealed. "If you please, sir"-- "Well, Teddy?" "I should like to send a letter to Mr. Burroughs." "Do you mean a letter from yourself?" "Yes, sir." A slight smile crossed Mr. Barlow's face, as he replied a little sneeringly,-- "I am afraid your business will have to wait till Mr. Burroughs's return, my boy." "Don't you be sending him letters, sir?" "I have; but, when I heard from him yesterday, he was about leaving Cincinnati, and gave me no further address. He will be at home in a day or two." Mr. Barlow passed on, and Teddy stooped over his work, but to so little purpose, that, on submitting it for inspection, he received a sharp reproof for his negligence, and an order to do the whole afresh. "What a Quixotism of Burroughs's to try to educate this stupid fellow!" muttered Mr. Barlow to a friend who lounged beside his table; and Teddy, hearing the criticism upon his patron, felt an added weight fall upon his own conscience. "They laugh at him because I'm stupid, and I'm stupid because I'm thinking of what I've done. It's good that they'll soon be shut of me altogether. Maybe I can sweep the crossings, or clean the gutters," thought poor miserable Teddy, bending afresh to his task.