n
smoothing her hair and kissing her, laughing and crying hysterically.
"You are my baby girl that I lost long ago, my own little Mabel. I know
it. I know it."

"Mrs. Allison," said Grace firmly, placing her arm around the sobbing
woman, who seemed to have entirely lost control of her emotions, "try
and be calm. There is so much to tell. Will you listen to me? And you
must sit down, you were not strong enough for this. We should have
waited."

Mrs. Allison partially released Mabel from her embrace, though she still
held her hand, and allowed Grace to gently push her back toward her
chair.

"I don't quite understand you, my dear," she said brokenly. "But I am
sure that I have found my own dear little child."

"And I am sure of it, too," replied Grace. "In fact, we have suspected
it since the day we first saw you at the station. We noticed the marked
resemblance between you and Mabel, and when you told us your name was
Allison we all felt that you might be Mabel's mother. Do you feel strong
enough to hear our story and to tell us yours?"

"Tell me quickly," exclaimed Mrs. Allison eagerly, recovering in a
measure from her violent agitation. "I must know the truth. It seems
incredible that I should find my lost baby girl alive and in good hands.
I am surely dreaming. It cannot be true. Yet she has the same sweet,
serious expression in her brown eyes that she had in babyhood. Even her
middle name, Isabel, that her father insisted upon giving her because it
is mine!"

Anne, dreading another outbreak, gently interposed. "Try and be calm,
Mrs. Allison, while we tell you about Mabel."

Then Anne began with the winning of the freshman prize by Mabel at the
close of her freshman year, and the interest she had aroused in the girl
chums, and followed with the story of her adoption by the Phi Sigma Tau.

Mrs. Allison listened in rapt attention until Anne had finished. "God is
good," she murmured. "A higher power surely willed that Mabel should
find true and worthy friends."

Then she began questioning Mabel about her life in the orphanage. Did
Mabel have any recollection of the day she was brought there? Had Mary
Stevens, the attendant, ever described the clothing that she had worn
when found?

"I have the baby pins I wore with me. Jessica asked me to wear them
to-day," replied Mabel, who looked like a person just awakened from a
deep sleep. She had not yet reached a full comprehension of what it all
meant.

"Let me s