ady,"
observed Mrs Leslie.

She examined it carefully, but could find no name either on the picture
or the case. It was placed on the mantelpiece to show to the captain as
soon as he arrived. Jane then took the child in to see Susan, who
kissed him again and again, as if he were her own child restored to her,
and from that moment she felt towards him almost as if she was his
mother. Of course I had to go over the whole story again, but I could
only narrate what I knew.

"We must wait to hear more till the captain comes back," said Mrs
Leslie. "He will be truly thankful to find that you have escaped, Ben,
and then we will consider what must be done with this little child.
Perhaps his father or mother may have escaped and will claim him, or the
poor young lady who you say took him on board, though you think she was
not his mother."

"Please, ma'am," I said, "though I cannot claim any merit for saving the
child--for it was the sheep saved him--I would like that my wife should
have charge of him, and I am sure she would, for she said so just now.
I say it at once for fear anybody else should ask to have him and I
suspect that there will be a good many who will make the offer."

"We will hear what the captain thinks," said Mrs Leslie. "But you
certainly have a better claim than anybody else, though, as I said
before, probably some of his friends will come and claim him."

I thought so too, but I knew in the meantime that it would please Susan
greatly to have charge of the little fellow.

At last the ladies, leaving Jane with us, returned home; and the doctor
went to visit his other patients, saying he would look in again during
the evening.

By that time Susan was able to sit up and tell me more about the young
lady. She had got up very early in the morning, and, begging to have
some breakfast for herself and the little boy, said that she wanted to
pay a visit to a ship at Spithead, and would be back in the evening.
She had gone away, taking her bag with her, but left a letter with a
sovereign in it, and a few words to the effect that she wished to pay
her rent and board in advance. This, Susan thought, she did that it
might not be supposed that she was going away without paying.

I went down to the inn, at which we understood the young lady had left
her trunk, but I could hear nothing of it; the landlord said that no
such person as I described had come there. I made inquiries at other
public-houses, thinki