s longer; and then, having carefully secluded her from
marriage and other friendship, to leave her nothing but the regret of
having lost so kind a benefactress. Conformably with this notion, and in
order to secure the affections of the child, Miss Starke had relaxed
the frigid austerity natural to her manner and mode of thought, and been
kind to Helen in an iron way. She had neither slapped nor pinched her,
neither had she starved. She had allowed her to see Leonard, according
to the agreement made with Dr. Morgan, and had laid out tenpence
on cakes, besides contributing fruit from her garden for the first
interview,--a hospitality she did not think it fit to renew on
subsequent occasions. In return for this, she conceived she had
purchased the right to Helen bodily and spiritually, and nothing could
exceed her indignation when she rose one morning and found the child had
gone. As it never had occurred to her to ask Leonard's address, though
she suspected Helen had gone to him, she was at a loss what to do, and
remained for twenty-four hours in a state of inane depression. But then
she began to miss the child so much that her energies woke, and she
persuaded herself that she was actuated by the purest benevolence in
trying to reclaim this poor creature from the world into which Helen had
thus rashly plunged.

Accordingly she put an advertisement into the "Times," to the following
effect, liberally imitated from one by which in former years she had
recovered a favourite Blenheim:--

TWO GUINEAS' REWARD.

STRAYED, from Ivy Cottage, Highgate, a Little Girl,--answers to the
name of Helen; with blue eyes and brown hair; white muslin frock,
and straw hat with blue ribbons. Whoever will bring the same to Ivy
Cottage, shall receive the above Reward.

N. B.--Nothing more will be offered.

Now it so happened that Mrs. Smedley had put an advertisement in the
"Times" on her own account, relative to a niece of hers who was coming
from the country, and for whom she desired to find a situation. So,
contrary to her usual habit, she sent for the newspaper, and close by
her own advertisement, she saw Miss Starke's.

It was impossible that she could mistake the description of Helen; and
as this advertisement caught her eye the very day after the whole house
had been disturbed and scandalized by Burley's noisy visit, and on which
she had resolved to get rid of a lodger who received such visitors, the
goo