strange story, and I hope you will
find her, and bring the pretty young lady back with you, sir; she was
disappear from here like the sea mist."

Nance was perfectly bewildered when Cardo appealed to her for
information, and her delight at his return to clear her darling's name
knew no bounds. She brought out her best teacups, settled the little
black teapot in the embers, and gradually drew her visitor into a
calmer frame of mind.

His questions were endless. Every word that Valmai had said, every
dress she had worn, every flower she had planted in the little garden
were subjects of interest which he was never tired of discussing.

But of deeper interest than flowers or dresses was Nance's account of
the tiny angel, who came for a short time to lighten the path of the
weary girl, and to add to her difficulties.

"And she gave it up so meekly, so humbly, as if she could _see_ the
beautiful angels who came to fetch it. It laid there on the settle in
its little white nightgown, and she was sitting by it without crying,
but just looking at it, sometimes kissing the little blue lips. Dr.
Francis was very kind, and did everything about the funeral for her.
It is buried up here in the rock churchyard, in the corner where they
bury all the nameless ones, for we thought he had no father, you see,
sir, and we knew it was unbaptised. She would not have it christened.
She was waiting for you to come home, for she would not tell its name,
saying, 'Baby will do for him till his father comes home,' and 'Baby'
he was, pertws bach."

Cardo sat listening, with his hands shading his eyes.

"And now, here's the directions, sir," she said, as Peggi Bullet
returned from the well. "Here you, Peggi fach, you are so nimble, you
climb up the ladder and bring the old teapot down."

And the nimble woman of seventy soon laid before them the old cracked
teapot, out of which Nance drew the same faded address which she had
once shown to Valmai.

"It is horribly faint," said Cardo, a fresh tremor rising in his heart.

"Here it is now," said Nance, placing her shrivelled finger on the
paper. "This is where she went from here, when all this trouble came
upon her, and everybody pointed the finger of scorn at her; and when
she had given up the hope that you would ever come back, sir, she
turned to her sister, dear child!"

"I never knew she had a sister!"

"No, nor she didn't know much about her; but I knew, and I told her.
Born the s