r play was over he called her to him and taking her in his
lap, kissed the little grave face upon which the shadow of the scene she
had been enacting had left its impress.

'Jerry,' he said, 'that lady who just died in the bed with the cap on
was your mamma, was it not?'

''Ess,' was Jerry's reply, for she still adhered to her first
pronunciation of the word.

'And the other was the nurse?'

''Ess,' Jerry said again; 'Mah-nee.'

This was puzzling, for he had always supposed that by 'mah-nee' the
child meant 'mam-ma;' but he went on:

'Try to understand me, Jerry; try to think away back before you came in
the ship.'

''Ess, I vill,' she said, with a very wise look on her face, while Mr.
Tracy continued:

'Had you a papa? Was he there with you?'

'_Nein_,' was the prompt reply, and Mr. Tracy continued:

'Where did your mamma live? Was it in Wiesbaden?'

He knew he did not pronounce the word right, and was surprised at the
sudden lighting up of the child's eyes as she tried to repeat the name.
'Oo-oo-ee,' she began, with a tremendous effort, but the W mastered her,
and she gave it up with a shake of her head.

'I not say dat oo-oo-ee,' she said, and he put the question in another
form:

'Where did your mamma die?'

'Tamp House; f'oze to deff,' was now the ready answer, a natural one,
too, for she had been taught by Harold that such was the case, and had
often gone with him to the house where he found her, and where the old
table still stood against the wall.

No one picnicked there now, for the place was said to be haunted, and
the superstitious ones told each other that on stormy nights, when the
wild winds were abroad, lights had been seen in the Tramp House, where a
pale-faced woman, with her long, black hair streaming down her back,
stood in the door-way, shrieking for help, while the cry of a child
mingled with her call. But Harold shared none of these fancies. He was
not afraid of the building, and often went there with Jerry, and sitting
with her on the table, told her again and again how he had found her
mother that wintry morning, and how funny she herself had looked in the
old carpet-bag, and so it is not strange that when Mr. Tracy asked her
where her mother died, she should answer, 'In the Tramp House,' although
she had acted a pantomime whose reality must have taken place under very
different circumstances.

'Of course your mother died in the Tramp House, and I have nothing with
which to