mother
_could_ have blessed me. And now, after all these years, to be told she
was _not_ my mother! O me, O me! I don't know what I am saying!" he
cried, as the impulse of self-control under which he had spoken a moment
since, flickered, and died out. "It was not this dreadful grief--it was
something else that I had it in my mind to speak of. Yes, yes. You
surprised me--you wounded me just now. You talked as if you would have
hidden this from me, if you could. Don't talk in that way again. It
would have been a crime to have hidden it. You mean well, I know. I
don't want to distress you--you are a kind-hearted woman. But you don't
remember what my position is. She left me all that I possess, in the
firm persuasion that I was her son. I am not her son. I have taken the
place, I have innocently got the inheritance of another man. He must be
found! How do I know he is not at this moment in misery, without bread
to eat? He must be found! My only hope of bearing up against the shock
that has fallen on me, is the hope of doing something which _she_ would
have approved. You must know more, Mrs. Goldstraw, than you have told me
yet. Who was the stranger who adopted the child? You must have heard
the lady's name?"

"I never heard it, sir. I have never seen her, or heard of her, since."

"Did she say nothing when she took the child away? Search your memory.
She must have said something."

"Only one thing, sir, that I can remember. It was a miserably bad
season, that year; and many of the children were suffering from it. When
she took the baby away, the lady said to me, laughing, 'Don't be alarmed
about his health. He will be brought up in a better climate than this--I
am going to take him to Switzerland.'"

"To Switzerland? What part of Switzerland?"

"She didn't say, sir."

"Only that faint clue!" said Mr. Wilding. "And a quarter of a century
has passed since the child was taken away! What am I to do?"

"I hope you won't take offence at my freedom, sir," said Mrs. Goldstraw;
"but why should you distress yourself about what is to be done? He may
not be alive now, for anything you know. And, if he is alive, it's not
likely he can be in any distress. The, lady who adopted him was a bred
and born lady--it was easy to see that. And she must have satisfied them
at the Foundling that she could provide for the child, or they would
never have let her take him away. If I was in your place, sir--ple