ng you that my father and I had
returned to the city.'

"He looked at me a moment with a calm, severe, scrutinizing gaze,
and then said--

"'Yes, I received your note, and have this moment seen Mr.--, who
called upon you. And he corroborates the instant suspicion I had
that your story could not be correct. He tells me that the man whom
you call your father resembles Moses a great deal more than he does
the late Mr. Ballantine. So you see, madam, that your story won't go
for any thing here.'

"There was something cold and sneering in the tone, manner, and
expression of Mr. Paralette that completely broke me down. I saw, in
an instant, that my case was hopeless, at least for the time. I was
a lone, weak woman, and during an absence of eight years from my
native city, I had grown up from a slender girl into a tall woman,
and had, from suffering and privation, been greatly changed, and my
countenance marred even since I had attained the age of womanhood.
Under these circumstances, with my father changed so that no one
could recognize him, I felt that to make my strange story believed
would be impossible. From the presence of Mr. Paralette I retired,
and went back to the hotel, feeling as if my heart would break. Oh,
it was dreadful to be thus repulsed, and at home, too I tried only
twice more to make my story believed; failing in these efforts, I
turned all my thoughts toward the restoration of my father to mental
health, believing that, when this was done, he, as a man, could
resume his own place and his true position. I had over six thousand
dollars of the money I had taken from my father's pocket-book, and
which I had always kept so completely concealed about my person,
that no one had the least suspicion of it. Five thousand of this I
deposited on interest, and with the residue took a small house in
the suburbs of the city, which I furnished plainly, and removed into
it with my father. I then employed two of the most skillful
physicians in the city, and placed him in their hands, studiously
concealing from them our real names and history. For eighteen months
he was under medical treatment, and for at least six months of that
time in a private insane hospital. But all to no effect. Severe or
lenient treatment all ended in the same result. He continued a
simple, harmless old man, fond of me as a child is of his mother,
and looking up to and confiding in me for every thing.

"At the end of the period I have indicated