He did get better of it, though Doctor Constant shook his head warningly when he met him still at his labors in the hospital. Grace knew nothing of it, by his wish, and in February a letter from Lulu, who had spent a portion of the winter in Italy, filled Mrs. Clendenon with the same perplexities, doubts, and hopes that agitated Lulu's heart in her far away home in London, which, with its foggy atmosphere and chilly rains, made itself peculiarly disagreeable to the young American lady who pined for the clear, pure atmosphere and health-giving sea-breeze of her own native home, while she gently deferred to the wishes of her husband and his aunt, and remained abroad until it pleased them to turn their faces homeward. CHAPTER XXVI. LULU TO HER MOTHER. "Tis strange but true; for truth is always strange, Stranger than fiction." --BYRON. "LONDON, ENG., March 20th, 1874. "I promised to write you, dear mother if I should discover anything of interest relating to the little child of whom I wrote you in the autumn; and thanks to dear Bruce (who pretended not to take any interest in the matter at all) I have something to write you which, if nothing more comes of it, is certainly one of the strangest coincidences that ever happened. Mrs. Conway and Bruce think it can be only a coincidence, but my hopeful heart whispers that it may be more. But I will tell you of it, mother dearest, and leave you to judge for yourself. "In the first place, then, my dear Bruce used only to be amused at my fondness for and interest in the child that bore such marked resemblance to two of my friends, though he could not but admit the likeness himself. But after he became convinced, as I was, that there was some mystery or some secret about the little one's parentage, he, quite unknown to me (not wishing to arouse hopes that might be disappointed in the end), set about making inquiries in a quiet and cautious manner, which brought to light the facts I am about to relate. "I suppose it is hardly necessary I should remind you, mother, that the Englishwoman, Mrs. Moreland, who stole little Paul Winans from the hotel in Washington, D. C., and was traced to the steamer that left for England, told the servant-girl there that she had buried her husband in New York, as also a little girl and boy one year old, and that he was the last child of five. You will also remember that the girl, Annie Grady, and other waiters in the hotel thought that Mrs. Moreland was not quite right in her mind--that is to say, she was on the verge of insanity, and it was supposed that, under some hallucination that the child was her own, she kidnapped little Paul, and, with a lunatic's proverbial cunning, succeeded in getting away with him.