can turn round now."

Amelius turned. Mrs. Farnaby's boots and stockings were on the
hearthrug, and one of Mrs. Farnaby's feet was placed, ready for
inspection, on the chair which he had just left. "Look at my right foot
first," she said, speaking gravely and composedly in her ordinary tone.

It was well worth looking at--a foot equally beautiful in form and
in colour: the instep arched and high, the ankle at once delicate and
strong, the toes tinged with rose-colour at the tips. In brief, it was
a foot to be photographed, to be cast in plaster, to be fondled and
kissed. Amelius attempted to express his admiration, but was not
allowed to get beyond the first two or three words. "No," Mrs. Farnaby
explained, "this is not vanity--simply information. You have seen my
right foot; and you have noticed that there is nothing the matter with
it. Very well. Now look at my left foot."

She put her left foot up on the chair. "Look between the third toe and
the fourth," she said.

Following his instructions, Amelius discovered that the beauty of the
foot was spoilt, in this case, by a singular defect. The two toes were
bound together by a flexible web, or membrane, which held them to each
other as high as the insertion of the nail on either side.

"Do you wonder," Mrs. Farnaby asked, "why I show you the fault in my
foot? Amelius! my poor darling was born with my deformity--and I want
you to know exactly what it is, because neither you nor I can say what
reason for remembering it there may not be in the future." She stopped,
as if to give him an opportunity of speaking. A man shallow and flippant
by nature might have seen the disclosure in a grotesque aspect. Amelius
was sad and silent. "I like you better and better," she went on. "You
are not like the common run of men. Nine out of ten of them would have
turned what I have just told you into a joke--nine out of ten would have
said, 'Am I to ask every girl I meet to show me her left foot?' You are
above that; you understand me. Have I no means of recognizing my own
child, now?"

She smiled, and took her foot off the chair--then, after a moment's
thought, she pointed to it again.

"Keep this as strictly secret as you keep everything else," she said.
"In the past days, when I used to employ people privately to help me to
find her, it was my only defence against being imposed upon. Rogues and
vagabonds thought of other marks and signs--but not one of them could
guess at such a