take these letters?" he said, with his hand on a bundle of
letters which lay on the table at his side; "and put them into the safe."

They were letters of importance, to which he had been giving, during the
evening, such attention as he was able. During his illness, he had allowed
his secretary to keep the key of the safe.

Miss Owen took the letters, and went downstairs. Going first into the
dining-room, she told Miss Jemima that "Cobbler" Horn seemed likely to go
to sleep, and then proceeded to the office. Without delay, she unlocked
the safe, and was in the act of depositing the bundle of letters in its
place, when, from a recess at the back, a small tissue-paper parcel, which
she had never previously observed, fell down to the front, and became
partially undone. As she picked it up, intending to restore it to the
place from which it had fallen, her elbow struck the side of the safe, and
the parcel was jerked out of her hand. In trying to save it, she retained
in her grasp a corner of the paper, which unfolded itself, and there fell
out upon the floor a little child's shoe, around which was wrapped a strip
of stained and faded pink print. At a sight so unexpected she uttered a
cry. Then she picked up the little shoe, and, having released it from its
bandage, turned it over and over in her hands. Next she gave her attention
to the piece of print. She was utterly dazed. Suddenly the full meaning of
her discovery flashed upon her mind. She dropped the simple articles by
which she had been so deeply moved, and, covering her face with her hands,
burst into a paroxysm of joyous tears. But her agitation was brief.
Hastily drying her eyes, she picked up the little shoe. No need to wait
till she had compared it with the one which lay in the corner of her box!
The image of the latter was imprinted on her mind with the exactness of a
photograph, with its every wrinkle and spot, and every slash it had
received from that unknown, wanton hand. She _could_ compare the two
shoes here and now, as exactly as though she actually saw them side by
side. Yes, this little shoe was indeed the fellow of her own! And the
strip of print--what was it but her missing bonnet-string? She had found
what she had so often longed to find. And she herself was--yes, why should
she hesitate to say it?--the little Marian of whom she had so often heard!

How wonderful it was! Here was truth stranger than fiction, indeed! She
laughed--a gentle, trilling lau