e months after the
shipwreck I sent him a line, so that he might find me if he happened to
pass my way. Well, you may believe I was glad to get the purse and some
of the other things, Mr. Donald, but the picture and the key were a
worriment to me. The picture did not seem to belong to me any longer.
Sometimes I thought I would try to send them to the ship's company, to
be forwarded to the right persons, and so rid my mind of them; but I had
that foolish, wicked fear that I'd be traced out and punished. Why
should I, their _bonne_, be saved and they lost? some might say. Often I
was tempted to destroy these things out of my sight; but each time
something whispered to me to wait, for some day one who had a right to
claim them would be helped to find me. I little thought that one of the
very babies I threw down over the waves would be that person--"

"That's so," said Donald, cheerily.

Hearing a doleful sound from the alley far below them, he opened the
window and leaned out. A beggar in rags stood there, singing his sad
story in rhyme.

Verse after verse came out in mournful measure, but changed to a
livelier strain when Don threw down a piece of money, which hit the
ragged shoulder.

"Well," said Donald, by way of relief, and again turning to Madame Rene,
"that's a sorry-looking chap. You have all kinds of people here in
Paris.--But, by the way, you spoke of tearing strips from your gown on
the night of the shipwreck. Do you happen to have that same gown still?"

"No, Master Donald--not the gown. I made it into a skirt and wore it,
year after year, for I was obliged to be very saving; and then it went
for linings and what not. Yonder cape there on the chair is faced with
it, and that's ready to be thrown to the beggars."

"Let _this_ beggar see it, please," said Donald, blithely; and in a
moment he was by the window comparing his samples with the cape-lining
as knowingly as a dry-goods buyer.

"Exactly alike!" he exclaimed. Then with an invisible little shudder, he
added: "Hold! let's try the flavor."

This test was unsatisfactory. But, after explanations, the fact
remained, to the satisfaction of both, that the "goods" were exactly the
same, but that Madame Rene's cape-lining having often been washed was
quite divested of its salt.

Here was another discovery. Donald began to feel himself a rival of the
great Wogg himself. Strange to say, in further corroboration of the
story of the buxom matron at Liverpool