“O ma’am! it’s so good of you to let me talk about her!  There was never another like her in all the world, I believe.  I used to take her walking Sundays, and look at all the children we met (some of them rich folks’ children, and dressed all out in their best); but there was never one could hold a candle to my little sister.  Oh! and I hope you’ll forgive me that word, ma’am; for I know it’s no business I had ever to call her so, or think of her so; but I was so proud of her!”

“I don’t need to forgive you, Teddy.  It shows how much you loved her; and that is what I like to think best.”

“But if you please, ma’am, will you tell me what is doing about looking for her?” asked Teddy eagerly.

“Very little now,” answered the lady sadly.  “The police traced Giovanni, the Italian organ-grinder, to the station, where he took the cars for the West.  At Springfield, a man answering to his description, with a little girl, staid all night; and next day the child danced-in the streets.”

The mother’s face grew deadly pale as she said the last words, and she paused a moment.  Teddy turned away his head, and Mrs. Ginniss groaned aloud.  Mrs. Legrange went on hurriedly:—­

“Where they went afterwards is not yet discovered; but they are looking everywhere.  It seems so strange”—­

She fell into a momentary revery, thinking, as she thought so many, many times in every day, how hard and strange it seemed that no clew could be found to her lost darling beyond the terrible day that saw her dancing in the public streets,—­an ignominy, that, to the lady’s sensitive mind, seemed almost equivalent to death.

Perhaps it would have been kinder had her husband and cousin told her the worst they knew or suspected, and allowed her to mourn her child as dead.  The acute detective in whose hands the new clew had been placed had not only traced the fugitives to Springfield, as Mrs. Legrange had said, but had ascertained at what hour they left the hotel for the railway-station.  It was impossible, however, to discover for what point the Italian had purchased tickets, as the station-master had no recollection of him, and the baggage-master was sure he had seen “no sich lot” as was described to him.

And, from Springfield, a man may take passage to almost any point in the Union.  One startling fact remained, and upon this fact the whole report of the detective turned.

The train leaving Springfield for Albany upon the night when Giovanni left that town, encountered, at a certain point, another train, which, by some incomprehensible stupidity, was supposed to have passed that point half an hour before.

Consequences as usual,—­frightful loss of life; a game of give and take in the newspapers, as to who should bear the blame, finally resulting in a service of plate to one party, and a donation in money to the other; several lawsuits brought by enterprising widowers who demand consolation for the loss of their wives; by other men, who, having skulked the draft, now found themselves minus both legs and glory; by spinsters whose bandboxes had been crushed, and by young ladies whose beauty had suffered damage from broken noses and scattered teeth.