his mother's letter, which the nature of
his errand to Europe gave him an undoubted right to do.

The necklace was soon in the hands of Madame Rene, who regarded it with
deep interest, and begged him to try the key which, she insisted, would
open it at once. Donald, eager to comply, made ready to push aside the
top of the clasp, and then he resolved to do no such thing. Uncle George
or Dorry should be the first to put the key into that long-silent lock.

Next came the pictures. Don looked at the four little faces in a
startled way, for the resemblance of the babies in the group to those in
the two photographs was evident. The group, which was an ambrotype
picture of Ellen Lee and the twins, was somewhat faded, and it had been
taken at least three weeks before the New York photographs were. But,
even allowing for the fact that three weeks make considerable change in
very young infants, there were unmistakable points of similarity. In the
first place, though all the four heads were in baby caps, two chubby
little faces displayed delicate light locks straying over the forehead
from under the caps, while, on the other hand, two longish little faces
rose baldly to the very edge of the cap-border. Another point which
Ellen Lee discovered was that the bald baby in each picture wore a
sacque with the fronts rounded at the corners, and the "curly baby," as
Donald called her, displayed in both instances a sacque with square
fronts. Donald, on consulting his uncle's notes, found a mention of this
difference in the sacques; and when Madame Rene, without seeing the
notes, told him that both were made of flannel, and that the boy's must
have been blue and the girl's pink,--which points Mr. Reed also had set
down,--Don felt quite sure that the shape of the actual sacques would
prove on examination to agree with their respective pictures. Up to that
moment our investigator had, in common with most observers of the
masculine gender, held the easy opinion that "all babies look alike;"
but circumstances now made him a connoisseur. He even fancied he could
see a boyish look in both likenesses of his baby-self; but Madame Rene
unconsciously subdued his rising pride by remarking innocently that the
boy had rather a cross look in the two pictures, but that was "owing to
his being the weakest of the twins at the outset."

Then came the pink ribbon--and here Donald was helpless. But Madame
Rene came to the rescue by explaining that if any ribb