"Yes; I was once a great, stupid, ragged newsboy. I do not mean to deny, to conceal anything. I am so very sorry, for your sake; but I hope you will like me in spite of it all. If just those few words and that one smile did so much for me, what is there your influence may not do?" "Mr. Heremore, I do not in the least understand you." "I don't know where to begin; this has excited me so that I do not know what I am saying, and now I wish almost that you might never know it; there is such a difference between us that I cannot tell how to begin." "Is it necessary that you should begin?" asked Mary. "You told me you wished to speak to me, of some discoveries you had made in regard to yourself. To anything about yourself I will listen with interest; but I do not care to have anything said about myself; there can be no connection between the two subjects that I can see; so pray do not waste words on so poor a subject as myself; but tell me the discovery, if you please." "But it concerns you as much as it does me. Do you know much about your own mother? She died, you told me, long ago." "I know very little about her. I presume her death was a great grief to papa; for he has never permitted a word to be said about her, and anything that pains papa in that way is never alluded to. {68} The little I do know I have learned from my old nurse." "You do not remember her?" "Not in the least; she died when I was a mere baby." "Did you ever see her portrait, or any of her writing, or hear her maiden name?" "No, to all your questions. Does papa know you are here, this morning?" "Yes; I went to him at once. At first he was very determined I should not see you; but in the end, he seemed glad to get me silenced at any price, and I was so anxious to see you that I did not wait for very cordial permission." "You did not talk to papa about my mother?" "Yes, that is what I went for." "How did you dare to do it? Was he not very angry? I am sure you know something about mamma." "Yes, I do. I have her portrait; this is it." "Her portrait! My mamma's portrait! O what a beautiful face! Is this really my mamma? Did papa see it? Did he recognize it?" "I showed it to him. He did not deny it was hers." "_Deny it was hers!_ What in the world do you mean, Mr. Heremore? Where did you get it?" Then Dick, in the best way he could, told the whole story of the box, and gave her the letter to read. When Mary came to the part which said, "_Will you love your sister always, let what may be her fate? Remember, always, she had no mother to guide her_," she turned her eyes, full of tears, to Dick, saying no words. "She did not know that it would be the other way," Dick replied to her look, his own eyes hardly dry. "She would have begged for me if she had known that--" farther than this he could not get. Mary put her hands in his, and said earnestly: