He carried the lamp to a little table and read the cuttings carefully. They all dealt with one subject: The identification of unknown children that had brought fabulous fortunes to the lucky person who had traced their descent. Some of the cuttings were very old, yellow with age, and scarcely decipherable. Evidently Mrs. Inglethorne’s collection covered a long period. He supposed the police had searched the box, which was nearly filled with little cylinder-shaped bundles tied around with tape. Linen, coarse calico, cotton--diving into the mass, his fingers touched silk. The bundles had once been white, but constant fingering and dust had left them an indescribable hue. He untied a bundle and opened it. It consisted of a child’s cotton nightdress, a little pair of woollen shoes, and a small knitted shawl. Pinned to the shoes was a scrap of paper on which was written in an illiterate hand the words: “Mrs. Larse, boy, ten days old, measles, nine months.” Here then was the beginning and end of Mrs. Larse’s boy. “Measles, nine months” was his epitaph. She was a baby farmer; he had guessed that. He opened another bundle hopefully. Somewhere here would be a reference to Elizabeth. The second package had nothing but a coarse calico robe and a penned inscription: “Young girl named Leavey, five days, whooping cough, six weeks.” One by one he unrolled these little tragedies, and few indeed were they who had not their death certificates inscribed laconically at the end. Some had two papers, identically inscribed. He supposed that the repetition was due to Mrs. Inglethorne’s careless and haphazard system of “bookkeeping.” He had examined twelve and took out the thirteenth, wondering what potency there was in that lucky or unlucky number. The nightdress he unrolled was of the finest linen, the most expensive of all he had examined. The shawl was of heavy silk, and the microscopic shirt of the most delicate flannel. For some time he could not find the inscription, but eventually it was discovered inside the shawl. Only three words, but they set his heart beating. “Miss Martha’s girl.” The bundle dropped from his nerveless hands. “Miss Martha’s girl!” He took the letter out of his pocket. “I have found a home for your son and----” He read again the pencilled words “Martha’s servant.” And Martha’s servant was--Mrs. Inglethorne! Miss Martha’s girl. This woman could not have made a mistake. One by one he examined the clothes separately, and then, pinned to the inside of the dress, near the collar, he found a second paper written in the same hand, and, reading it, he uttered a hoarse cry. “Miss Martha’s girl Elizabeth.”