it is so very sad, it makes you
seem almost like an old friend to know that you once knew and loved
mamma."

"Thank you, dear child," returned the man, eagerly, a smile hovering
for a moment around his thin lips. "I hardly expected you to greet me
thus, but it nevertheless sounds very pleasant to my unaccustomed
ears. And now, having told you my story in brief, my wish is to settle
upon you, for your dear mother's sake, as well as for your own, a sum
that will place you above the necessity of ever laboring for your
support in the future. During the last ten years I have greatly
prospered in business--indeed, I have accumulated quite a handsome
fortune--while, strange to say, I have not a relative in the world to
inherit it. The disease which has attacked me warns me that I have not
long to live; therefore I wish to arrange everything before my mind
and strength fail me. One-half of my property I desire to leave to a
certain charitable institution in this city; the remainder is to be
yours, my child, and may the blessing of an old and world-weary man go
with it."

As he concluded, Edith raised her tearful eyes to find him regarding
her with a look of tender earnestness that was very pathetic.

"You are very, very kind, Mr. Raymond," she responded, in tremulous
tones, "and I should have been inexpressibly happy if mamma could have
been benefited by your generosity; but--I feel that I have no right to
receive this bequest from you."

"And why not, pray?" exclaimed her companion, in surprise, a look of
keen disappointment sweeping over his face.

"Because--truth compels me to tell you that I am the child of Mr. and
Mrs. Allandale only by adoption," said Edith, with quivering lips, for
it always pained her to think of her relationship to those whom she
had so loved, in this light.

"Can that be possible?" cried Mr. Raymond, in astonishment.

"Yes, sir; it hurts me to speak of it--to even think of if; but it is
true," she replied.

Then she proceeded to relate the circumstances of her adoption, as far
as she could do so without casting any reflections upon the unhappy
young mother who had been so wronged in Rome.

"Of course, I loved papa and mamma just the same as if they had really
been my own parents," she remarked, in conclusion, "for I had not a
suspicion of the truth until after mamma died. I was always treated
exactly as if I had been as near to them as the children who died."

"And have you no knowledge o