nd subsequent absence prevented my
hearing the story of the foundling at the Ingledew hospital. Perhaps
the news never reached my remote district; at any rate, by the time I
returned it had been forgotten among the many heartrending incidents
of that dreadful uprising. It was no doubt Lao-ya who had managed to
flee with her nursling, though I still cannot understand why she
should have travelled the immense distance from Tsi-chin to Tsien-Lou,
unless she were trying to reach the home of her parents, who, I
understood, came from a different province. Where she was wounded, or
what horrors and cruelties she encountered, we shall never know, since
she paid for her devotion with her life.

"For fourteen years more I remained in the canton of Szu-chwan, then,
owing to my broken health, I was obliged reluctantly to give up my
work there and return to England. The death of an uncle had left me
in easy circumstances, and, finding the climate of North Wales suited
me, I bought Dale Side and settled down there with the intention of
writing a book on the many modern problems of China and its future
development, a subject on which I thought I was competent to express
an opinion.

"It was not until Sylvia spoke of the facsimile of my locket owned by
her schoolfellow, and until she had told me the story of how Mercy was
left at the Ingledew hospital, that it ever occurred to me that it was
possible for my little Mary to have survived the general massacre, and
even then I put the idea aside as romantic and absurd. It haunted me,
however, to such an extent that I determined to go over to Aberglyn
and make a few private enquiries from Miss Kaye on the subject. When I
first saw Mercy I was struck at once by her likeness to my dead wife,
and the locket soon proved to my entire satisfaction that I was not
mistaken in my conjectures. All the dates exactly correspond, and I
think there will now be no difficulty in convincing everybody of her
identity."

"It is indeed a very strange and happy ending to a sad story," said
Miss Kaye, wiping her eyes. "Mercy on her part has gone through a time
of trial which I am sure has done its work in helping to form her
character. She has been much to us in the school, and I could not hand
over a sweeter daughter to a more worthy father."

"Then she is Mary Severn now, instead of Mercy Ingledew!" exclaimed
Sylvia.

"She was baptized Mary," said Dr. Severn. "But we will call her Mercy
still. No fitter