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deceived all my life."

"I make the statement on your father's authority--I should say, on my
brother's authority."

"Can you prove it, Mr. Roscoe?"

"I can. I will presently put into your hands a letter, written me by my
brother some months since, which explains the whole matter. To save you
suspense, however, I will recapitulate. Where were you born?"

"In California."

"That is probably true. It was there that my brother found you."

"Found me?"

"Perhaps that is not the word. My brother and his wife were boarding
in Sacramento in the winter of 1859. In the same boarding house was a
widow, with a child of some months old. You were that child. Your mother
died suddenly, and it was ascertained that she left nothing. Her child
was, therefore, left destitute. It was a fine, promising boy--give me
credit for the compliment--and my brother, having no children of his
own, proposed to his wife to adopt it. She was fond of children, and
readily consented. No formalities were necessary, for there was no one
to claim you. You were at once taken in charge by my brother and his
wife, therefore, and very soon they came to look upon you with as much
affection as if you were their own child. They wished you to consider
them your real parents, and to you the secret was never made known, nor
was it known to the world. When my brother returned to this State, three
years after, not one of his friends doubted that the little Hector was
his own boy.

"When you were six years old your mother died--that is, my brother's
wife. All the more, perhaps, because he was left alone, my brother
became attached to you, and, I think, he came to love you as much as if
you were his own son."

"I think he did," said Hector, with emotion. "Never was there a kinder,
more indulgent father."

"Yet he was not your father," said Allan Roscoe, with sharp emphasis.

"So you say, Mr. Roscoe."

"So my brother says in his letter to me."

"Do you think it probable that, with all this affection for me, he would
have left me penniless?" asked the boy.

"No; it was his intention to make a will. By that will he would no doubt
have provided for you in a satisfactory manner. But I think my poor
brother had a superstitious fear of will making, lest it might hasten
death. At any rate, he omitted it till it was too late."

"It was a cruel omission, if your story is a true one."

"Your--my brother, did what he could to remedy matters. In his last
sickn