n
recommended the natural food, and found, in a village close by, the
nurse to whom a little time before Jasper Losely had consigned his own
daughter. The latter died; the nurse then removed to Paris to reside
with the singer, who had obtained a lucrative appointment at one of the
metropolitan theatres. In less than two years the singer herself fell
a victim to a prevailing epidemic. She had lived without thought of the
morrow; her debts exceeded her means; her effects were sold. The nurse,
who had meanwhile become a widow, came for advice and refuge to her
sister, who was in the service of Gabrielle Desmarets. Gabrielle, being
naturally appealed to, saw the infant, heard the story, looked into
the statement which, by way of confession, the singer had drawn up, and
signed, in a notary's presence, before she died; looked into the letters
from Mrs. Vance, and the schoolboy scrawls from Frank, both to the
singer and to the child's parents, which the actress had carefully
preserved; convinced herself of the poverty and obscurity of the
infant's natural guardians and next of kin; and said to Jasper, who was
just dissipating the fortune handed over to him as survivor of his wife
and child: "There is what, if well-managed, may retain your hold on a
rich father-in-law when all else has failed. You have but to say
that this infant is his grandchild; the nurse we can easily bribe,
or persuade to confirm the tale. I, whom he already knows as that
respectable baroness, your Matilda's friend, can give to the story some
probable touches. The lone childless man must rejoice to think that
a tie is left to him. The infant is exquisitely pretty; her face will
plead for her. His heart will favour the idea too much to make him very
rigorous in his investigations. Take the infant. Doubtless in your own
country you can find some one to rear it at little or no expense, until
the time come for appeal to your father-in-law when no other claim on
his purse remains."

Jasper assented with the insouciant docility by which he always
acknowledged Gabrielle's astuter intellect. He saw the nurse; it was
clear that she had nothing to gain by taking the child to
English relations so poor. They might refuse to believe her, and
certainly--could not reward. To rid herself of the infant, and obtain
the means to return to her native village with a few hundred francs in
her purse, there was no promise she was not willing to make, no story
she was too honest