w of your baby? You are a fool, or mad!" answered the
woman, trying to throw her off. "I don't know you."

"But I know you, Mrs. Bray," said Edith, speaking the name at a venture
as the one she remembered hearing the servant give to her mother.

At this the woman's whole manner changed, and Edith saw that she was
right--that this was, indeed, the accomplice of her mother.

"And now," she added, in voice grown calm and resolute, "I do not mean
to let you escape until I get sure knowledge of my child. If you fly
from me, I will follow and call for the police. If you have any of
the instincts of a woman left, you will know that I am desperately
in earnest. What is a street excitement or a temporary arrest by the
police, or even a station-house exposure, to me, in comparison with the
recovery of my child? Where is he?"

"I do not know," replied Mrs. Bray. "After seeing your father--"

"My father! When did you see him?" exclaimed Edith, betraying in her
surprised voice the fact that Mr. Dinneford had kept so far, even from
her, the secret of that brief interview to which she now referred.

"Oh, he hasn't told you! But it's no matter--he will do that in good
time. After seeing your father, I made an effort to get possession of
your child and restore him as I promised to do. But the woman who had
him hidden somewhere managed to keep out of my way until this morning.
And now she says he got off from her, climbed out of a second-story
window and disappeared, no one knows where."

"This woman's name is Pinky Swett?" said Edith.

"Yes."

Mrs. Bray felt the hand that was still upon her arm shake as if from a
violent chill.

"Do you believe what she says?--that the child has really escaped from
her?"

"Yes."

"Where does she live?"

Mrs. Bray gave the true directions, and without hesitation.

"Is this child the one she stole from the Briar-street mission on
Christmas day?" asked Edith.

"He is," answered Mrs. Bray.

"How shall I know he is mine? What proof is there that little Andy, as
he is called, and my baby are the same?"

"I know him to be your child, for I have never lost sight of him,"
replied the woman, emphatically. "You may know him by his eyes and mouth
and chin, for they are yours. Nobody can mistake the likeness. But there
is another proof. When I nursed you, I saw on your arm, just above the
elbow, a small raised mark of a red color, and noticed a similar one on
the baby's arm. You will see it the