took away was the child of that
lady whose portrait hangs there!"

Mr. Wilding started to his feet. "Impossible!" he cried out, vehemently.
"What are you talking about? What absurd story are you telling me now?
There's her portrait! Haven't I told you so already? The portrait of my
mother!"

"When that unhappy lady removed you from the Foundling, in after years,"
said Mrs. Goldstraw, gently, "she was the victim, and you were the
victim, sir, of a dreadful mistake."

He dropped back into his chair. "The room goes round with me," he said.
"My head! my head!" The housekeeper rose in alarm, and opened the
windows. Before she could get to the door to call for help, a sudden
burst of tears relieved the oppression which had at first almost appeared
to threaten his life. He signed entreatingly to Mrs. Goldstraw not to
leave him. She waited until the paroxysm of weeping had worn itself out.
He raised his head as he recovered himself, and looked at her with the
angry unreasoning suspicion of a weak man.

"Mistake?" he said, wildly repeating her last word. "How do I know you
are not mistaken yourself?"

"There is no hope that I am mistaken, sir. I will tell you why, when you
are better fit to hear it."

"Now! now!"

The tone in which he spoke warned Mrs. Goldstraw that it would be cruel
kindness to let him comfort himself a moment longer with the vain hope
that she might be wrong. A few words more would end it, and those few
words she determined to speak.

"I have told you," she said, "that the child of the lady whose portrait
hangs there, was adopted in its infancy, and taken away by a stranger. I
am as certain of what I say as that I am now sitting here, obliged to
distress you, sir, sorely against my will. Please to carry your mind on,
now, to about three months after that time. I was then at the Foundling,
in London, waiting to take some children to our institution in the
country. There was a question that day about naming an infant--a boy--who
had just been received. We generally named them out of the Directory. On
this occasion, one of the gentlemen who managed the Hospital happened to
be looking over the Register. He noticed that the name of the baby who
had been adopted ('Walter Wilding') was scratched out--for the reason, of
course, that the child had been removed for good from our care. 'Here's
a name to let,' he said. 'Give it to the new foundling who has been
received to-day.' The name