in the library of their elegant mansion up town,
leading the daily papers.

It was shortly after breakfast, and presently Agnes, her adopted
daughter, entered the room. The Arnolds had never had any children,
save one, a girl, and she had died when she was three years old. While
going to the funeral, Mrs. Arnold saw a poorly clad lady walking
slowly along with a little girl so strikingly like her own dead child,
that she was perfectly astonished,--so much so, indeed, that she
called her husband's attention to the little one. Mr. Arnold himself
was so surprised that he had the carriage stop, and, getting out, went
and inquired the lady's name and address.

"For, madame," said he, as a reason for his doing such an apparently
strange act, "your little daughter here is a perfect likeness of our
own little Agnes, whose coffin you see in yonder hearse. You must
allow Mrs. Arnold and me to call upon you, though we are perfect
strangers to you; indeed you must."

"Very well, sir," answered the strange lady, "I shall not, certainly
under the circumstances, object."

Immediately after the funeral the Arnolds called at the residence of
Mrs. Morton, whose husband had died more than a year before. She was
obliged to take in plain sewing, and when she could do so, she gave
occasional lessons in French to eke out a livelihood for herself and
child. A very short interview resulted in Mrs. Arnold persuading the
widow to take a permanent situation with her, as her seamstress. And
from that date until her death, which took place five years later, the
fortunate widow and her child lived with the Arnolds as full members
of the family.

With an exquisite and grateful regard for the sensibilities and
possible wishes of her benefactors, the mother of the child
voluntarily changed its name from Mary to Agnes.

"I know you will approve of my doing so," said she, on the occasion of
her daughter's birthday--the Arnolds made quite a time of it, decking
the new Agnes in all the trinkets which had once belonged to the
little Agnes, who was gone--"I know you will approve of my doing so,
and I cannot think of any better way in which to express my gratitude
to you both."

Mr. and Mrs. Arnold were moved to tears by these words; in fact, so
deep and genuine was their emotion that neither one spoke for some
time. They did nothing but fondle and kiss the child they had adopted.

Thenceforward, instead of Mary Morton, the child was Agnes Arnold.