strike off placards,
offering five hundred pounds reward for the recovery of the child.
This was to be done in an hour or two, and then taken to the police
station for distribution throughout the country round. Having now
done all in his power, Captain Ripon rode back as rapidly as he had
come, in hopes that the child might already have been found.

No news had, however, been obtained of him, nor had anyone seen any
strange woman in the neighborhood.

On reaching the house, he found his wife prostrated with grief and,
in answer to her questions, he thought it better to tell her about
the discovery of the boot.

"We may be some little time, before we find the boy," he said; "but
we shall find him, sooner or later. I have got placards out
already, offering five hundred pounds reward; and this evening I
will send advertisements to all the papers in this and the
neighboring counties.

"Do not fret, darling. The woman has done it out of spite, no
doubt; but she will not risk putting her neck in a noose, by
harming the child. It is a terrible grief, but it will only be for
a time. We are sure to find him before long."

Later in the evening, when Mrs. Ripon had somewhat recovered her
composure, she said to her husband:

"How strange are God's ways, Robert. How wicked and wrong in us to
grumble! I was foolish enough to fret over that mark on the
darling's neck, and now the thought of it is my greatest comfort.
If it should be God's will that months or years should pass over,
before we find him, there is a sign by which we shall always know
him. No other child can be palmed off upon us, as our own. When we
find Tom we shall know him, however changed he may be!"

"Yes, dear," her husband said, "God is very good, and this trial
may be sent us for the best. As you say, we can take comfort, now,
from what we were disposed to think, at the time, a little cross.
After that, dear, we may surely trust in God. That mark was placed
there that we might know our boy again and, were it not decreed
that we should again see him, that mark would have been useless."

The thought, for a time, greatly cheered Mrs. Ripon but, gradually,
the hope that she should ever see her boy again faded away; and
Captain Ripon became much alarmed at the manifest change in her
health.

In spite of all Captain Ripon could do, no news was obtained of the
gypsy, or Tom. For weeks he rode about the country, asking
questions in every village; or hurried a