seems just like
a piece of my old home, because he loved papa so much. Mamita Lila,
didn't you say papa was a poor clerk when you and he first began to
love one another?"

"Yes, my child," she replied; and she kissed the bright, innocent face
that came bending over her, looking so frankly into hers.

When she had gone out of the room, Mrs. Delano said to herself,
"That darling child, with her strange history and unworldly ways, is
educating me more than I can educate her."

A week later, Mr. and Mrs. Percival came, with tidings that no such
persons as Signor and Madame Papanti were on board the Mermaid; and
they proposed writing letters of inquiry forthwith to consuls in
various parts of Italy and France.

Flora began to hop and skip and clap her hands. But she soon paused,
and said, laughingly: "Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen. Mamita often
tells me I was brought up in a bird-cage; and I ask her how then can
she expect me to do anything but hop and sing. Excuse me. I forgot
Mamita and I were not alone."

"You pay us the greatest possible compliment," rejoined Mr. Percival.

And Mrs. Percival added, "I hope you will always forget it when we are
here."

"Do you really wish it?" asked Flora, earnestly. "Then I will."

And so, with a few genial friends, an ever-deepening attachment
between her and her adopted mother, a hopeful feeling at her heart
about Rosa, Tulee's likeness by her bedside, and Madame's parrot to
wish her _Bon jour_! Boston came to seem to her like a happy home.

CHAPTER XXIII.

About two months after their return from the South, Mr. Percival
called one evening, and said: "Do you know Mr. Brick, the
police-officer? I met him just now, and he stopped me. 'There's plenty
of work for you Abolitionists now-a-days,' said he. 'There are five
Southerners at the Tremont, inquiring for runaways, and cursing
Garrison. An agent arrived last night from Fitzgerald's
plantation,--he that married Bell's daughter, you know. He sent for me
to give me a description of a nigger that had gone off in a mysterious
way to parts unknown. He wanted me to try to find the fellow, and,
of course, I did; for I always calculate to do my duty, as the law
directs. So I went immediately to Father Snowdon, and described the
black man, and informed him that his master had sent for him, in
a great hurry. I told him I thought it very likely he was lurking
somewhere in Belknap Street; and if he would have the goodness to