“I don’t understand you, uncle.”

“The funeral of her affections,—­that’s what I mean.  Perhaps you mayn’t know that Rachel was, in early life, engaged to be married to a young man whom she ardently loved.  She was a different woman then from what she is now.  But her lover deserted her just before the wedding was to have come off, and she’s never got over the disappointment.  But that isn’t what I was going to talk about.  You haven’t told me about your adopted sister.”

“That’s what I’ve come to Philadelphia about,” said Jack, soberly.  “Ida has been carried off, and I’ve been sent in search of her.”

“Been carried off!” exclaimed his uncle, in amazement.  “I didn’t know such things ever happened in this country.  What do you mean?”

In answer to this question Jack told the story of Mrs. Hardwick’s arrival with a letter from Ida’s mother, conveying the request that the child might, under the guidance of the messenger, be allowed to pay her a visit.  To this, and the subsequent details, Abel Crump listened with earnest attention.

“So you have reason to think the child is in (sic) Phildelphia?” he said, musingly.

“Yes,” said Jack, “Ida was seen in the cars, coming here, by a boy who knew her in New York.”

“Ida!” repeated his Uncle Abel, looking up, suddenly.

“Yes.  You know that’s my sister’s name, don’t you?”

“Yes, I dare say I have known it; but I have heard so little of your family lately, that I had forgotten it.  It is rather a singular circumstance.”

“What is singular!”

“I will tell you,” said his uncle.  It may not amount to anything, however.  A few days since, a little girl came into my shop to buy a small amount of bread.  I was at once favorably impressed with her appearance.  She was neatly dressed, and had a very sweet face.”

“What was her name?” inquired Jack.

“That I will tell you by and by.  Having made the purchase, she handed me in payment a silver dollar.  ’I’ll keep that for my little girl,’ thought I at once.  Accordingly, when I went home at night, I just took the dollar out the till, and gave it to her.  Of course she was delighted with it, and, like a child, wanted to spend it at once.  So her mother agreed to go out with her the next day.  Well, they selected some nicknack or other, but when they came to pay for it the dollar proved to be spurious.”

“Spurious!”

“Yes, bad.  Got up, no doubt, by a gang of coiners.  When they told me of this I thought to myself, ’Can it be that this little girl knew what she was about when she offered me that money?’ I couldn’t think it possible, but decided to wait till she came again.”

“Did she come again?”