turb you, but that child has notes in her voice about two
stories higher than any operer prymer donner that I ever heard, an'
I've heard lots of 'em, for I used to go into the top gallery of the
operer as often as into the theayter; an' if any operer singer ever
heard them high notes of Corinne's,--an' there was times when she'd let
'em out without the least bit of a notice,--it's them that's took her."

"But, my poor Pomona," said Euphemia, "you don't suppose that little
child could be of any use to an opera singer; at least, not for years
and years."

"Oh, yes, ma'am," replied Pomona; "she was none too little. Sopranners
is like mocking-birds; they've got to be took young."

No arguments could shake Pomona's belief in this theory. And she daily
lamented the fact that there was no opera in London at that time that
she might go to the performances, and see if there was any one on the
stage who looked mean enough to steal a child.

"If she was there," said Pomona, "I'd know it. She'd feel the scorn of
a mother's eye on her, an' her guilty heart would make her forget her
part."

Pomona frequently went into Kensington Gardens, and laid traps for
opera singers who might be sojourning in London. She would take Little
Kensington into the gardens, and, placing her carefully in the corner
of a bench, would retire to a short distance and pretend to be absorbed
in a book, while her sharp eyes kept up the watch for a long-haired
tenor, or a beautifully dressed soprano, who should suddenly rush out
from the bushes and seize the child.

"I wouldn't make no fuss if they was to come out," she said. "Little
Kensington would go under my arm, not theirn, an' I'd walk calmly with
'em to their home. Then I'd say: 'Give me my child, an' take yourn,
which, though she probably hasn't got no voice, is a lot too good for
you; and may the house hurl stools at you the next time you appear, is
the limit of a mother's curse.'"

But, alas for Pomona, no opera singers ever showed themselves.

These days of our stay in London were not pleasant. We went about
little, and enjoyed nothing. At last Pomona came to us, her face pale
but determined.

"It's no use," she said, "for us to keep you here no longer, when I
know you've got through with the place, and want to go on, an' we'll
go, too, for I don't believe my child's in London. She's been took
away, an' we might as well look for her in one place as another. The
perlice tells us that if she'