rman people who
brought it up as their own. I was that child."

The woman seated by Clara's side had listened with strained attention.
"Did you learn the name of the steamboat?" she asked quietly, but
quickly, when Clara paused.

"The Pride of St. Louis," answered Clara. She did not look at Mrs.
Harper, but was gazing dreamily toward the front, and therefore did not
see the expression that sprang into the other's face,--a look in which
hope struggled with fear, and yearning love with both,--nor the strong
effort with which Mrs. Harper controlled herself and moved not one
muscle while the other went on.

"I was never sought," Clara continued, "and the good people who brought
me up gave me every care. Father and mother--I can never train my tongue
to call them anything else--were very good to me. When they adopted me
they were poor; he was a pharmacist with a small shop. Later on he moved
to Cincinnati, where he made and sold a popular 'patent' medicine and
amassed a fortune. Then I went to a fashionable school, was taught
French, and deportment, and dancing. Father Hohlfelder made some bad
investments, and lost most of his money. The patent medicine fell off in
popularity. A year or two ago we came to this city to live. Father
bought this block and opened the little drug store below. We moved into
the rooms upstairs. The business was poor, and I felt that I ought to do
something to earn money and help support the family. I could dance; we
had this hall, and it was not rented all the time, so I opened a
dancing-school."

"Tell me, child," said the other woman, with restrained eagerness, "what
were the things found upon you when you were taken from the river?"

"Yes," answered the girl, "I will. But I have not told you all my story,
for this is but the prelude. About a year ago a young doctor rented an
office in our block. We met each other, at first only now and then, and
afterwards oftener; and six months ago he told me that he loved me."

She paused, and sat with half opened lips and dreamy eyes, looking back
into the past six months.

"And the things found upon you"----

"Yes, I will show them to you when you have heard all my story. He
wanted to marry me, and has asked me every week since. I have told him
that I love him, but I have not said I would marry him. I don't think it
would be right for me to do so, unless I could clear up this mystery. I
believe he is going to be great and rich and famous, and there