e they were peddlers that they could get those things
cheaper."

Mattia whistled, but he shook his head, then again he whispered: "You're
not that Driscoll's baby, but you're the baby that Driscoll stole!"

I was about to reply but he had already climbed up into his bed.

CHAPTER XXVIII

A MYSTERIOUS STRANGER

If I had been in Mattia's place, I should perhaps have had as much
imagination as he, but I felt in my position that it was wrong for me to
have such thoughts. It had been proved beyond a doubt that Mr. Driscoll
was my father. I could not look at the matter from the same point of
view as Mattia. He might doubt ... but I must not. When he tried to make
me believe as he did, I told him to be silent. But he was pig-headed and
I was not always able to get the better of his obstinacy.

"Why are you dark and all the rest of the family fair?" he would ask
repeatedly.

"How was it that poor people could dress their baby in fine laces and
embroidery?" was another often repeated question. And I could only reply
by putting a question myself.

"Why did they search for me if I was not their child? Why had they given
money to Barberin and to Greth and Galley?"

Mattia could find no answer to my question and yet he would not be
convinced.

"I think we should both go back to France," he urged.

"That's impossible."

"Because it's your duty to keep with your family, eh? But is it your
family?"

These discussions only had one result, they made me more unhappy than I
had ever been. How terrible it is to doubt. Yet, in spite of my wish not
to doubt, I doubted. Who would have thought when I was crying so sadly
because I thought I had no family that I should be in such despair now
that I had one. How could I know the truth? In the meantime I had to
sing and dance and laugh and make grimaces when my heart was full.

One Sunday my father told me to stay in the house because he wanted me.
He sent Mattia off alone. All the others had gone out; my grandfather
alone was upstairs. I had been with my father for about an hour when
there was a knock at the door. A gentleman, who was unlike any of the
men who usually called on my father, came in. He was about fifty years
old and dressed in the height of fashion. He had white pointed teeth
like a dog and when he smiled he drew his lips back over them as though
he was going to bite. He spoke to my father in English, turning
continually to look at me. Then he began to talk