vorite large type, sprinkled with red letters.
He informed the public, through the medium of his hand-bills, that
the father of the Mysterious Foundling had been "most providentially"
discovered, and that he (Mr. Jubber) had given the child up immediately,
without a thought of what he might personally suffer, in pocket as well
as in mind, by his generosity. After this, he appealed confidently
to the sympathy of people of every degree, and of "fond parents"
especially, to compensate him by flocking in crowds to the circus;
adding, that if additional stimulus were wanting to urge the public into
"rallying round the Ring," he was prepared to administer it forthwith,
in the shape of the smallest dwarf in the world, for whose services
he was then in treaty, and whose first appearance before a Rubbleford
audience would certainly take place in the course of a few days.

Such was Mr. Jubber's ingenious contrivance for turning to good
pecuniary account the ignominious defeat which he had suffered at the
hands of Dr. Joyce.

After much patient reasoning and many earnest expostulations, Mrs. Joyce
at last succeeded in persuading Mr. Blyth that he might carry little
Mary upstairs to her bed, without any danger of awakening her.
The moonbeams were streaming through the windows over the broad,
old-fashioned landings of the rectory stair-case, and bathed the child's
sleeping face in their lovely light, as Valentine carefully bore her in
his own arms to her bedroom. "Oh!" he whispered to himself as he paused
for an instant where the moon shone clearest on the landing; and looked
down on her--"Oh! if my poor Lavvie could only see little Mary now."

They laid her, still asleep, on the bed, and covered her over lightly
with a shawl--then went down stairs again to wait for Mrs. Peckover.

The clown's wife came in half an hour, as she had promised. They saw
sorrow and weariness in her face, as they looked at her. Besides a
bundle with the child's few clothes in it, she brought the hair bracelet
and the pocket-handkerchief which had been found on little Mary's
mother.

"Wherever the child goes," she said, "these two things must go with
her." She addressed Mr. Blyth as she spoke, and gave the hair bracelet
and the handkerchief into his own hands.

It seemed rather a relief than a disappointment to Mrs. Peckover to hear
that the child was asleep above stairs. All pain of parting would now be
spared, on one side at least. She went up to l