ious thing in God to permit me to owe the great happiness
of this discovery to the little crippled child he had cast upon my care
so mysteriously, and I failed not to render to him with other grateful
acknowledgments "most humble and hearty thanks" for this crowning grace.
Henceforth Hope should lend her torch to light my dearth--her wings to
bear me up--her anchor wherewith to moor my bark of life wherever cast,
and to the poor waif I cherished I owed this immeasurable good. Had Mrs.
Clayton anticipated him with her infallible besom--that housewifely
detective, that drags more secrets to light than ever did paid
policeman--I should never have grasped this talisman of love and hope,
never have waked up as I did wake up from that hour to the endurance
which immortalizes endeavor, and renders patience almost pleasurable.

On the back of this well-worn letter was a pencil-scrawl, which,
although I read it last, I present first to my reader, that he may trace
link by link the chain of villainy that bound together my two
oppressors.

It was in the small, clear calligraphy of Basil Bainrothe, before
described; characterized, I believe, as a backhand--and thus it ran:

"You are right--it was a master-stroke! Keep them in ignorance
of each other, and all will yet go well. I sail to-morrow, and
have only time to inclose this with a pencilled line. Try and
head them at New York. My first idea was the best--my reason I
will explain later.

"Yours truly,

"B.B.

"N.B.--The man could not have played into our hands better than
by taking up such an impression. There is no one there to
undeceive him."

THE LETTER.

"My Miriam: Your note, through the hands of Mr. Gregory, has
been received--read, noted, pondered over with pain and
amazement. The avowal of your name so uselessly withheld from
me, lets in a whole flood of light, blinding and dazzling, too,
on a subject that fills me with infinite solicitude.

"There have been strange reserves between us that never ought to
have existed, on my part as well as yours. I should have told
you that I once had a half-sister, called Constance Glen--older
than myself by many years--who married during my long absence
from our native land a gentleman much older than herself, an
Englishman by the name of Monfort, and, after giving birth to a
daughter, died suddenly. These particulars I gathered fro