ange!" he muttered to himself. "At the first
glance I thought that this must be the brown paper parcel that I made
inquiry about at the station of the Grand National Trunk Railway long
ago, but the diamond ring puts that out of the question. No nurse, in
her senses, would travel with a diamond ring tied up in a brown paper
parcel the size of her head."

We may remind the reader here that, when the brown paper parcel was
found and carried to the lost-luggage office of one of our western
railways, a note of its valuable contents was sent to the Clearing-House
in London. This was recorded in a book. As all inquiries after lost
property, wheresoever made throughout the kingdom, are also forwarded to
the Clearing-House, it follows that the notes of losses and notes of
inquiries meet, and thus the lost and the losers are brought together
and re-united with a facility that would be impracticable without such a
central agency. In the case of our diamond ring, however, no proper
inquiry had been made, consequently there was only the loss recorded on
the books of the Clearing-House.

While Edwin was pondering this matter, a note was put into his hands by
a junior clerk. It contained an inquiry after a diamond ring which had
been wrapped up in a large brown paper parcel, with the name Durby
written on it in pencil, and was lost many months before between
Clatterby and London. The note further set forth, that the ring was the
property of Mrs Tipps of Eden Villa, and enclosed from that lady a
minute description of the ring. It was signed James Noble, M.D.

"Wonderful!" exclaimed Edwin. "The most singular coincidence I ever
experienced."

Having thus delivered himself, he took the necessary steps to have the
ring sent to London, and obtained leave (being an intimate friend of the
Tipps family) to run down by train and deliver it.

While he is away on this errand, we will take the opportunity of
mounting his stool and jotting down a few particulars about the
Clearing-House, which are worth knowing, for that establishment is not
only an invaluable means of effecting such happy re-unions of the lost
and the losers, as we have referred to, but is, in many other ways, one
of the most important institutions in the kingdom.

The Railway Clearing-House is so named, we presume, because it clears up
railway accounts that would, but for its intervention, become
inextricably confused, and because it enables all the different lines