le more to say, beyond exacting a promise that he would come
and see her once again, and when he was about to leave she put a small,
dirty-looking, brown-paper packet in his hand.

"There," she said. "I'd no business to, and he'd ha' took it away if
he'd ha' known; but he didn't; and it's yours, for it was in your
father's pocket when he come here and died."

The "he" the poor old woman meant was the workhouse master, and the
packet was opened in his presence, and found to contain a child's linen
under-garment plainly marked--"Max Vanburgh, 12," and a child's
highly-coloured toy picture-book, frayed and torn, and further
disfigured by having been doubled in half and then doubled again, so
that it would easily go in a man's pocket.

It was the familiar old story of Little Red Riding-Hood, but the
particular feature was an inscription upon the cover written in a
delicate feminine hand--

"For my darling Max on his birthday, June 30th, 18--.
Alice Vanburgh, The Beeches, Daneton."

"But you told me the boy's father was a rough, drunken tramp, who died
in the infirmary."

"Yes, sir, I did," said Mr Hippetts, when he had a private interview
with the doctor next day. "But it seems strange."

"Very," said the doctor.

Helen also agreed that it was very strange, and investigations followed,
the result of which proved, beyond doubt, that Dexter Grayson, otherwise
Obed Coleby, was really Maximilian Vanburgh, the son of Captain Vanburgh
and Alice, his wife, both of whom died within two years of the day when,
through the carelessness of a servant, the little fellow strayed away
out through the gate and on to the high-road, where he was found far
from home, crying, by the rough, tipsy scoundrel who passed that way.

The little fellow's trouble appealed to what heart there was left in the
man's breast, and he carried him on, miles away, careless as to whom he
belonged to, and, day by day, further from the spot where the search was
going on. The child amused him; and in his way he was kind to it, while
the little fellow was of an age to take to any one who played with and
petted him. Rewards and advertisements were vain, for they never
reached the man's eyes, and his journeyings were on and on through a
little-frequented part of the country, where it was nobody's business to
ask a rough tramp how he came by the neglected-looking, ragged child,
who clung to him affectionately enough. The little fellow was happy
with