than anything I had dreamed of."

"Nevertheless, if she is not their child, she was stolen, and just in
proportion as the former is improbable, the latter is probable, almost
certain. You will now see wherein your supposition that my interest in
her was due to her connection in my mind with some one I had formerly
known, was correct. I took a special interest in her for this reason;
it was a pleasure to teach her, to note her mind expanding so rapidly,
to watch her as she developed physically and mentally; every day
growing more and more like the one I had known. I enjoyed tracing the
resemblance day by day, though it often caused me almost as much pain
as pleasure,--but when I heard her sing, that was too much,--it was
more than I could bear,--it was like compelling some lost soul in
purgatory to listen to the songs of paradise."

There was a tremor in Jack's voice, and he paused, touched even more
deeply by the sympathetic tears glistening in the beautiful eyes full
of such tender pity, than by the bitter memories passing before his
own mind.

"What has perplexed me most," he continued, "is the fact that Lyle has
seemed unable to recall anything relating to her early childhood. I
have tried in every way to arouse her memory, and that was my chief
object in allowing her to see the photograph of which she told you;
but, as she often says, the first few years of her life seem to be
only blank. I cannot account for that."

"Still," said Miss Gladden, "these dreams of hers show that there are
memories there, and something may yet recall them to her mind."

"That has been my hope," he replied, "that is what I have been waiting
for all these years, for her mind to recall some incident, or some
individual, that would furnish the needed proof as to her parentage."

"Do you think," asked Miss Gladden, after a pause, "that it would be
wise to give Lyle a hint of our suspicions?"

"I have thought it might be well, if possible, to arouse her own
suspicions by some process of reasoning on her part, not by any
suggestions of ours."

"May I inquire whether those whom you consider her true parents are
still living?"

"They both died many years ago."

"Then, if her identity could be proven beyond a doubt, would there be
any one to give her such a home as she ought to have?"

"Yes, there are those who would be only too glad to give her such a
home as very few have the good fortune to possess."

"And have they never made a