ade. The artful widow
had begun by dismissing all her help, giving as an excuse her speedy
departure for Europe, and the colored girl she had brought up from New
York saw no difference in the child running about the house in its
little velvet suit from the one who, with bound-up face and a heavy
shade over his eyes, came up in the cars with her in Mrs. Carew's lap.
Her duties being limited to a far-off watch on the child to see that it
came to no harm, she was the best witness possible in case of police
intrusion or neighborhood gossip. As for Gwendolen herself, the novelty
of the experience and the prospect held out by a speedy departure to
"papa's country" kept her amused and even hilarious. She laughed when
her hair was cut short, darkened and parted. She missed but one thing,
and that was her pet plaything which she used to carry to bed with her
at night. The lack of this caused some tears--a grief which was divined
by Mrs. Ocumpaugh, who took pains to assuage it in the manner we all
know.

But this was after the finding of the second shoe; the event so long
anticipated and so little productive. Somehow, neither Mrs. Carew nor
Mrs. Ocumpaugh had taken into consideration the fact of the child's
shoes being rights and lefts, and when this attempt to second the first
deception was decided on, it was thought a matter of congratulation that
Gwendolen had been supplied with two pairs of the same make and that one
pair yet remained in her closet. The mate of that shown by Mrs.
Ocumpaugh was still on the child's foot in the bungalow, but there being
no difference in any of them, what was simpler than to take one of these
and fling it where it would be found. Alas! the one seized upon by Mrs.
Carew was for the same foot as that already shown and commented on, and
thus this second attempt failed even more completely than the first, and
people began to cry, "A conspiracy!"

And a conspiracy it was, but one which might yet have succeeded if
Doctor Pool's suspicion of Mrs. Ocumpaugh's intentions, and my own
secret knowledge of Mrs. Ocumpaugh's real position toward this child,
could have been eliminated from the situation. But with those two
factors against them, detection had crept upon them in unknown ways, and
neither Mrs. Ocumpaugh's frantic clinging to the theory she had so
recklessly advanced, nor Mrs. Carew's determined effort to meet
suspicion with the brave front calculated to disarm it, was of any
avail. The truth wou