“In the autumn of the year 18— my sisters and I, after a brief sojourn in the United States, took passage on our return voyage from New York to London by the clipper ship _Pandora_. There were not more than a score of passengers in addition to ourselves, but among them was a certain Mrs. Montmorenci-Vane, with her child, a baby about six months old. Her nursemaid, according to her account, having deserted her within an hour or two of her coming on board, she engaged a young woman from among the steerage passengers to look after her child during the voyage. Unfortunately, when the voyage was about half accomplished, Mrs. Montmorenci-Vane fell overboard one dark night and was lost. There was no one on the Pandora who knew anything about her; she was a complete stranger to every one. In this state of affairs, my sisters, who had their maid Tamsin with them, took upon themselves the care of the drowned woman’s babe for the rest of the voyage, in the expectation that some one would meet the ship on its arrival—some relative or friend—into whose hands they could transfer it. “In point of fact, when the _Pandora_ reached the London Dock it was met by a thin, shabbily-dressed, consumptive-looking man, who had come to inquire for his sister, one Martha Griggs. There was no such person on board, but, by means of a photograph, he recognised his sister in the Mrs. Montmorenci-Vane, who had fallen overboard. Never did I see a man more utterly dumfounded than he. His sister had been unmarried. Only a few months before she had gone out to the States as maid to a wealthy lady, who, a little later, had died there. She had written to her brother that she was coming home by the _Pandora_, and had asked him to meet the ship. But as to why she had chosen to call herself Mrs. Montmorenci-Vane, why she had gone to the extravagance of paying for a cabin passage, and whence she had obtained the child she passed off on board as her own, he professed himself as being utterly unable to comprehend. That the man’s wonder and amazement were genuine it was impossible to doubt. “He was a poor man, he averred, with a family of his own, and he would have nothing to do with his sister’s child, which, according to his account, was not hers at all. For anything he cared, it might go to the workhouse. He went away like a dazed man, with a promise that he would call on me the next morning; but he failed to do so, and I have never set eyes on him from that day to this.