t upon the night, while a
thousand thoughts and fancies came crowding into her brain, all born of
that likeness seen by her in the mirror when Arthur was with her at
Vassar, and which Harold, too, had recognized that afternoon when she
sat with him in the Tramp House. After Arthur had left her in May, she
had been too busy to indulge often in idle dreams, but they had come
back to her again with an overwhelming force, which seemed for a few
moments to lift the veil of mystery and show her the past, for which she
was so eagerly longing. The pale lace was clearer, more distinct in her
mind, as was the room with the tall white stove and the high-backed
settee beside it, and on the settee a little girl--herself, she
believed--and she could hear a voice from the cushioned chair where the
pale face was resting speaking to her and calling her by the name Arthur
had given her in his note.

'My child,' he had written; but he had only put it as a term of
endearment; he had no suspicion of the truth if it were truth; and yet
why should he not know? Could anything obliterate the memory of a child,
if there had been one, Jerrie asked herself, as her eyes wandered in
that direction of the park, which had once seemed to her like Paradise.

'I _will_ know some time. _I_ will find it out myself,' she said, as she
withdrew from the window and commenced her preparations for bed.

As she stepped into her dressing room, her eye fell upon the foreign
trunk, which had come with her, and with the contents of which she was
familiar. They had been kept intact by Mrs. Crawford, who hoped that by
them Jerrie might some day be identified. The girl went now to the old
trunk, and, lifting the heavy lid, took out the articles one by one with
a very different feeling from what she had ever experienced before when
handling them. The alpaca dress came first, and she examined it
carefully. It was coarse, and plain, and old-fashioned, and she felt
intuitively that a servant had worn it and not she whose pale, refined
face seemed almost to touch hers as she knelt beside the box. The cloak
and shawl, in which she had been wrapped, were inspected next, and on
these Jerrie's tears fell like rain, while there was in her heart an
indefinable feeling of pity for the woman who had resolutely put away
the covering from herself to save a life which was no part of her own.

'Oh, Mah-nee,' she sobbed, laying her face upon the rough, coarse
garments, 'I am not dislo